


For Q, Queen, and Country

by TheBritishGovernment



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Criminal Q, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plot, Slow Burn, post Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBritishGovernment/pseuds/TheBritishGovernment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Skyfall, Bond's suspicions are confirmed. Loyalty to anything other than his country is unacceptable, and anyone with divided fidelity should be hunted and killed. This new target isn't any different, except he is, and it doesn't take long for Bond to start playing Q's game. It's not like it <i>matters</i>. He's still trying to catch him and end him.</p><p>Or, the one where Q is a flirtatious international hacker, and Bond doesn't actually mind as much as he thinks he does.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://whishaw-bradshaw.tumblr.com/post/85072342204/for-q-queen-and-country-the-room-was-covered">Gif Set</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scout's Honor

It had been six months since he had “died.” Three months since he had come back. Two and a half months since she had died. Two and a half months since he had stopped caring. Two and a half months since he had stopped fighting. Two and a half months since he had felt anything other than empty. 

He had been on leave for two months after he went overboard on his first mission after M’s death. Bond didn’t even defend his actions when Mallory brought him in and assigned him the mandatory leave. He knew that if M was still there she would have screamed her anger until he went deaf and then whispered her disappointment until he dropped his gaze and the urge to apologize built up in his throat.

Instead, Mallory just sighed and sent him into temporary exile where Bond tried to numb the ache in his chest with booze and sex. But whiskey was still poison and sex was even more potent.

It wasn't long before Mallory needed Bond back to MI6 for a mission. He flew back from America where he had visiting (read: bothering) a friend and in two days he walked into the atrium to M’s office that doubled as Moneypenny’s office. 

Moneypenny smiled at him brightly. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Moneypenny. And might I say that you look as stunning as ever.” Bond gave her his most charming smile, which she rolled her eyes at and went back to her computer.

He walked into Mallory’s office. The slightly older man was pouring over a file. He looked up at Bond and gestured to the seat across from him. “Ready to get to work?”

“Of course, sir,” Bond answered stoically.

Mallory watched him for a moment before giving him a curt nod. “A while ago we discovered electronic phone taps on some of the more important members of the government. Including my own. It was traced to a group of hackers based in South Africa. According to our intel, they’re being indirectly funded by the Japanese. Once in South Africa you will go to the building where we think they’re centered. I want this taken care of quickly and efficiently. I’m sure you can understand why.” Mallory tossed the file across the desk.

Bond nodded and took the file.

Mallory looked Bond up and down with a more critical eye than before. “Are you up to the challenge?” 

“Of course, sir. Is that all?” Bond stood up and tucked the file under his arm.

“Go see Q. He’ll have everything you need. You leave tonight.”

Bond nodded and left the room without another word. He stopped in Moneypenny’s office and perched on her desk.

“Don’t you have a Quartermaster to be checking in with,” she asked without looking away from the email she was typing up.

“I’m sure he can wait for a minute,” Bond said with a flirtatious smirk.

Moneypenny looked up at him and gave him a flat look. “To answer your question I have a date with Devin from Analysis and you have a date with a British Airways flight, which – from what I’ve seen of Q-Branch’s budget – has minimal legroom. Now off you go.”

Bond gave her another smirk and stood up. “Devin is a horrible name.”

Moneypenny gave the agent a suggestive look. “But he has so many redeeming qualities.”

Bond laughed lightly. “Goodbye Miss Moneypenny. I hope to see you when I return.”

“If you’re lucky.” She smirked at him and turned away to refocus on her screen once again.

As Bond left the room he made a mental note to go visit “Devin from Analysis.” He had no claim to Moneypenny, and he didn’t want one either. 

Moenypenny had become one of the few people he considered a friend. Admittedly he had gotten slightly protective of her since the Skyfall fiasco (as everyone seemed to adore calling Silva’s mess, so long as Bond wasn’t around). Because of that he liked to check in on all of her new boyfriends so that they knew that if they managed to hurt Eve, she wouldn’t be the only one hunting them.

He went to Q-Branch first. The quartermaster was an old man with thin white hair and a bulging gut. He reminded him a bit of the gamekeeper Kincade who had worked at his parents’ home while he was growing up and hadn’t so much as batted an eyelash when Bond told him that there were men coming to kill him. “Major,” Bond said in greeting as he entered the man’s office. He picked up an ipod from the desk and turned it over in his hands.

“Put that down before you hurt yourself,” Major Geoffrey Boothroyd scolded. He grabbed the gadget out of the agent’s hands. 

“What have you got for me?” Bond asked, picking up another one of the many gadgets that were scattered around the room.

Boothroyd snatched the second gadget from Bond and gave him a sharp look. “Your normal Walther PPK,” he said handing Bond a black case. “As well as this.” He handed Bond a smartphone in a black case. “This picks up the voices around you and amplifies them when you put the headphones in. It also has a distress call button that will connect you to someone in Q-Branch. Obviously if you don’t answer after the signal is sent we will send an extraction team.”

Bond nodded and put the phone in his pocket. “Thank you, Q. I’ll put it to good use.”

“At least try and bring it back, 007.”

“You wound me. I always try. Scout’s honor.”

“You’ve spent too much time with Leiter,” Boothroyd said in a flat voice.

“And you spend too much time in this dungeon of yours,” Bond quipped. With that he turned on his heel and left the room with a confident (read: borderline arrogant) step.

He made a quick stop by Analysis and found Devin-from-Analysis. He didn’t have to approach him or say a word, he just gave the man a hard look from across the room. The man matched Bond’s gaze and nodded. 

It wasn’t exactly a secret that Bond checked up on all of Moneypenny’s dates. He wasn’t sure if Moneypenny knew, though she probably did. He had never said a word about it and neither had she. Maybe she thought it was endearing that the worn out old man had decided to protect her. That’s what Tanner had suggested after telling Bond that he could go around frightening random MI6 employees. Bond thought it was more likely that she used it as her own test for the men.

Bond went home and packed a handful of linen suits for the warm weather, it was the middle of summer in Cape Town where he was being sent. He went directly to the airport and by the next morning Bond was in Cape Town, South Africa.

He went to his hotel and dropped off his suitcase. Quickly, Bond checked the address and the specs he had been given. They didn’t know how many people were in the building, or anything else. Anytime an agent sent to investigate tried to send intel to MI6 the message would be corrupted. 

Quickly, he showered to rid himself of the scent that tended to cling to him after a long flight. After changing into a white linen suit he went downstairs to the hotel restaurant where he had set up a meeting with one of his contacts. 

Jordan Anderson was a smartly dressed man with a sharp eye. Bond had met him on his hunt for Quantum years before. He was one of the people who had actually been helpful and lived to tell the tale, not that he ever would.

He sat at the back of the restaurant watching everyone without drawing attention to himself. 

“Jordan,” Bond said as he sat across from the dark skinned man.

“James.” They shook hands and called over the waitress for drinks. When she left Bond brought them to business.

“What do you know?”

“Quite a few things, but I assume you’re asking about that building again,” he quipped.

Bond gave him a sharp look, though his mouth curled into a careful smirk.

Jordan replied with a similar expression. “Six months ago the building you’re asking about was evacuated. There was no legitimate reason given, but no one ever went back. I’ve turned over a few stones to figure out what’s going on there now,” Anderson explained.

“And?”

“And nothing, There is definitely someone or maybe a few someones, but I can’t find anything about them. There are a few who have seen people going there to deliver food, but when you talk to them, they claim not to know what you’re talking about,” Anderson trailed off as the waitress brought their drinks and took their lunch order.

Anderson continued as soon as she left. “They were, obviously, lying, but civilians are civilians. And I work for the government now.”

“Understood. Thank you, Jordan,” Bond said absently. He was pretty much going in blind, which was probably why he was the one sent in the first place. It was what he thrived on. Winging it was natural for him, the only way that he felt that he could actually work.

They spent the rest of the meal discussing fake business plans and exchanging information.

At the end Bond paid the bill on the MI6 card and went outside to find a cab, leaving Jordan to deal with whatever other business he was sure to have at the hotel. He wasn’t the type to go somewhere for only one person. 

Bond changed cabs three times and walked the last mile to lose anyone that might have been following him. 

The address that Mallory had given him was an apartment building at the end of a side street in one of the suburbs of the city. Bond stopped and, as discreetly as possible, checked his gun. When he stepped forward the sliding glass doors opened.

The agent moved quickly through all of the empty floors finding nothing more than scattered belongings of the men, women, and children who had fled the building. On the last floor, at the end of the hall, a door stood open. Bond could hear three distinct voices coming from the room. “He’s here, you idiots. Shut up,” one of the voices said. The voice was definitely male and British with posh tones.

“It’s not like we can hide from him,” another man countered, his voice distinctly American.

“I don’t plan on dying here,” another voice said, Spanish this time. There was the distinct click of a clip falling into place followed by the sound of a round being put in the chamber. 

Bond continued forward. He peaked around the corner and looked into the room. 

The room was covered in computers, servers, and the guts of more than a few electronics. There were take-out containers and empty energy drink cans scattered around the room. Three young men were standing in the middle of the room. One with large hipster glasses and a mess of curls looked right at Bond with wide green eyes. “Shit,” the British voice said, coming out of the dark haired boy. He turned on his heal and took off running.

The other two turned to look at him. They raised their guns and fired at him. Bond turned and pressed himself against the wall. He couldn’t see where the other man had gone, but he didn’t worry about it too much, instead choosing to focus on the two men still shooting at him.

Bond ducked around the corner and shot one of the men. The other one screamed and moved from behind the counter where he had been hiding. Bond shot him, putting them both out of their misery in moments.

Bond looked out the window of the apartment to see the dark haired boy running down the street with a backpack and a laptop case. Bond cursed under his breath. He had no way of stopping the man. Not without everyone around watching him fall to the ground into a puddle of his own blood.

Turning back to the computers, Bond tried to stop a program that was deleting select files off of the computer and server, but it wouldn’t stop. He sat down at one of the computers and tried to recover what was being lost, but no matter what he tried he couldn’t stop the program, he couldn’t even turn off the computer. 

Bond huffed and went over to the two dead men laying on the floor. He used his phone to take pictures of them and sent them to Mallory, Tanner, and the head of Intel.

Half an hour later he got an email from Q-Branch with his flight home and a notification telling him that a team would be there shortly to take care of the mess.

Bond stuffed his phone back into his pocket and left the building for his hotel. He didn’t call Q-Branch to reschedule his flight like he usually would have. Bond wanted to head back to MI6 as soon as possible and set people to searching for the man who had gotten away.

There was something about him that got under Bond’s skin. Just the thought of him made Bond’s blood boil. His psychologist would probably tell him that it was a residual hatred for Silva that Bond had. The man was a hacker who was betraying his country, for god knows what reason.

Bond didn’t really care about what his psychologist would say, though. He just knew that he was going to find the hacker, and when he did it was not going to end well for the small man.


	2. Find Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond starts the merry chase

As soon as Bond stepped off the plane in London, he was making his way back to MI6 for his debrief. He knew that Six had a number of ways that could probably be classified as magic to find the hacker from Cape Town, and he planned to utilize every last one of them.

He went immediately to Moneypenny's office and perched himself on her desk, as per his normal. She looked up at him with a smile that faded as soon as she saw him. “Are you all right?” she asked, looking more than a little concerned. 

Bond answered her with a confused look. “Perfectly fine. Why?”

“You look terrible, that's why.” She stood up and leaned forward, presumably to examine him more closely. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead.

Bond jerked away from her irritably. “Moneypenny, I think we should be checking _you_ for a fever.”

“Fine, don’t let me help.” Moneypenny sat back down with a huff. “How was South Africa? I hear the weather there is fantastic this time of year.”

“Uneventful, but I need to speak with M.”

“That doesn’t sound like it was uneventful,” she said lightly.

“Just trying to get the formalities out of the way so I can enjoy my leave without a call from M every ten minutes.”

It was a sorry excuse, and from the way Moneypenny was giving him a disbelieving look as she picked up her desk phone, she knew it as well. “007’s ready for you whenever you want him,” she said brightly. There was a slight pause as Mallory answered, and then she hung up the phone and looked back to Bond. “He’ll see you.” Moneypenny gestured to the door.

“Thank you, Miss Moneypenny.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Bond.”

Bond went into Mallory’s plush office to be greeted with a, “Tell me you have good news,” from Mallory, looking up at him from where he was sitting at his desk. 

“There were three men in the office when I arrived. One of them managed to get away. We were able to recover the computers and all of the information on them, including proof of the identity of the two men that were there. However, the information excluded information of the last man who managed to escape,” Bond explained. He had yet to sit down in either of the chairs in front of him and stood at parade rest instead.

Mallory gave him a suspicious look. “Are you sure there was a third man?”

Bond gave him a flat look. “Yes, sir.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“I believe so. He was clever enough to get away.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mallory nodded slowly. “Go talk to our sketch artist. She can send the picture to Q-Branch and they’ll do whatever it is they do. Is that all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get to it.”

Bond nodded and left the room. Moneypenny was waiting for him outside with a carefully arched eyebrow. “Does your sudden ability to appear after missions have anything to do with the one who got away?” she asked before Bond could even open his mouth to ask why she was giving him such a suspicious look.

“Is what about the guy who got away?” Bond perched himself on her desk again.

“The reason you’re in such a foul mood.”

“I’m not in a foul mood.”

“Yes, you are.”

Bond huffed. “How was your date with Devin-From-Analysis?” 

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Last time I didn’t ask about one of your dates, you yelled at him.”

Moneypenny narrowed her eyes at the agent. “Go see your sketch artist.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bond gave her a mock salute and walked out of the room. He went down a few floors to Intel and wandered around the bullpen for a while, bothering any of the minions who didn’t glare at him as he approached.

Soon he was approached by a woman with a sketch pad in her arms. “007, please come with me,” she said tightly. She immediately turned on her heel and marched away.

Bond followed with a slight smirk on his face. They stopped in a small room with two armchairs and a number of pencils laid out on the table between the chairs.

“Have a seat. I’m sure you know how this works. Just tell me about who you saw.”

Bond sat down in the chair and waited for the woman to situate herself. It took a few hours for Bond to finish describing the man and for the two of them to agree on an image. When they were finished, the artist took the picture to Q-Branch for them to work their magic.

Bond went back upstairs to visit with Moneypenny, who was probably still stuck in her office. Instead he found Tanner pulling on his coat and talking to someone on the phone. “Yes, I know it’s seven. It’s James’s fault,” Tanner said into the phone.

Bond gave Tanner a look that asked exactly what the fuck he was doing.

“Yes, James Bond. Alright. I’ll see you in a minute.” Tanner hung up the phone and stuffed it in his pocket and started out the door that Bond had just come through. “I heard you got beat by a kid.”

“I was being shot at,” Bond countered.

“Still, I saw the sketch.”

“When was the last time you were shot at?”

“Two and a half months ago,” Tanner replied flatly.

Bond went silent. He had forgotten that Silva hadn’t just attacked his family home and M. He had attacked everyone. He hadn’t even just taken M from Bond, but from everyone. No one Bond knew had died when Silva had attacked, the first or second time, but there were still a number of casualties involved in all of the attacks. “Go home to your wife, Tanner, before she comes after me because you told her it was my fault.”

“I needed someone to blame,” Tanner said lightly. They both got into the elevator. “See you tomorrow. Remember to fill out your After Action Report.”

“See you tomorrow. Where’s Moneypenny?”

 “Date.”

“Devin-From-Analysis?”

“Until HR has paperwork it’s not any of my business.” The elevator hit the bottom floor where the car park was and they parted ways. Bond stopped when he heard Tanner call back for him. He turned around to see Tanner with a grim look on his face. “Find him.”

Bond nodded. “Don’t I always?” Tanner nodded and turned back to his car.

Bond went back to his flat, and ordered himself take-out, and changed into a pair of worn out sweatpants. He pulled out a book that he had started reading while on leave and settled in for a lazy night in.

It wasn’t until noon the next day that Q-Branch caught sight of Bond’s new least favorite (living) person. An American passport photo leaving Luanda, Angola triggered the system, and the name was registered on a flight to Tokyo with a stop in Dubai. 

Bond was immediately booked on a flight to Tokyo. He went upstairs to Mallory’s office and stood almost anxiously, if he were a man who got anxious, outside while he finished a meeting with Tanner.

“I came to see if you wanted to grab a drink last night and Tanner told me you were off on a date,” Bond said conversationally.

“I was. Devin cooked for me at his flat,” Moneypenny replied. She was more interested by whatever was on her computer screen. Her brow furrowed slightly as she continued to read what was on the computer.

“Something interesting, Miss Moneypenny?” Bond asked, making his way behind her slowly. She changed the windows before Bond could see what was on her screen.

“Not in particular.” She looked up and smiled brightly at him.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“What makes you think I would lie to you?” she asked innocently.

“The fact that I can tell you’re lying is a pretty good indicator.”

Tanner opened the door behind Bond. “He’ll see you now.”

“Thank you, Tanner. I’ll talk to you later, Miss Moneypenny.” Bond flashed the secretary a smile and nodded at Tanner as he went into Mallory’s office.

“Bond,” Mallory greeted. “Sit.” Bond did as he was instructed. “I have nothing against finding this missing man. I do want him alive, though, and honestly, Bond you don’t have a very good track record of that, even at your most stable. And at the moment you aren’t giving anyone the impression that you’re in the realm of stable.”

“I assume you’re getting to something.”

“Bond, I need some reassurance that you can handle this mission.”

“Sir, with all due respect.” Mallory leaned back in his chair and Bond could tell that he was preparing himself to be disrespected. “You’re worried over nothing. I can handle this.”

“I certainly hope so,” Mallory said with a resigned sigh. “You may leave.”

“Good afternoon.” Bond stood up and left the room to find Moneypenny typing furiously on her computer. He didn’t dare break her concentration on his way out of the office. He had more pressing matters to consider.

He didn’t like the idea of people thinking that he was incapable of doing his job. There wasn’t any reason, in his mind, for anyone to doubt him or his abilities. He felt like ever since his resurrection everyone thought he was some sort of rookie instead of the veteran that he was. He had been an agent longer than some of them had been alive, or at least that was how he felt when he saw the new generation of agents still walking with a spring in their step, like they really believed that they could do some good, like they could single-handedly save the world.

Sometimes it hurt that he no longer thought like that. Sometimes when the alcohol started playing its wicked games Bond would start thinking about how he went from just like them, with the utmost faith in his country and government to being the person who asked if Tanner really bought into whatever M was saying. He didn’t know how he had got there and he didn’t particularly like it, but he still couldn’t bring himself to try and go back.

He still hated that Mallory – the new M and a bureaucrat – was the person that made the most sense to him. He still had the pathetic love of country planted deep within him, but was no longer under the illusion that the government knew best, or even cared anymore. The rules and restrictions were there for a reason, supposedly, but sometimes they got in the way of doing what needed to be done.

Maybe there was a reason that Double-Os didn’t have a very long life expectancy. They couldn’t bear to.

The thought plagued Bond as he set off for Tokyo.

He arrived the next day in the middle of the afternoon and skipped going to the hotel and called Q-Branch.

“R speaking,” a woman’s voice said after a secure line was established.

“Hello, darling,” Bond greeted.

“I’m not your, or anyone else’s, darling, 007,” she snapped at him.

“I’m just playing around,” Bond said lightly.

“I can cancel your credit cards, hotel, and your passport in less than two minutes. Do I sound like I’m playing around?”

“You have my apologies. I meant no offense.”

“What do you need, 007?”

“Do you still have a trace on the young man we’re looking for?”

“Actually, yes. He’s at the same hotel that you were supposed to be staying in. I’ll text you the room number. Call us when the job is done.”

“Yes, ma’am. 007 out.”

“R signing off.”

The line went dead and Bond stuffed the phone back in his pocked and hailed a cab.

He arrived at the hotel half an hour later. The hotel was one of the best in the city and was known for its discretion. They pretended to never see the same face twice and names were forgotten almost as soon as they were spoken. This made it a desirable place to stay for people having affairs and the type of people that Bond hunted. That meant that Bond also frequented the hotel, though it only helped in the way of Bond knowing the layout better than most.

He went to the front desk and checked in. He decided that he should at least at make an attempt at keeping his cover of being a businessman with less than legal business prospects, before the mission went to shit, like it always did.

Once in his room Bond took a second to look at the frankly spectacular view out of the floor to ceiling windows. 

Behind him, his TV turned on, as did the desktop computer sitting on a desk in a corner of the room. He turned to look at them. The screens were still black, but they were definitely on. Suddenly white block letters appeared on the screen.

Bond clenched his hands into fists at his side. He resisted the urge to hit anything, but only just. He rushed to the door but found that it was still locked and he couldn’t unlock it.

Turning back to the message on the screen Bond opened his phone to try and dial Q-Branch, but found the same message on the screen.

**_STOP FOLLOWING ME, COMMANDER JAMES ANDREW BOND, BRITISH SECRET SERVICE AGENT 007 ****_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen)


	3. I Like Her

Q sat on the couch of a hotel room with his legs crossed underneath him. He had his laptop sitting open on the coffee table in front of him with a steaming cup of Earl Grey sitting next to it. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and readjusted his glasses. 

He stared at his computer while he thought about his options. It had been a long time since anyone had posed a challenge to him, even longer since the challenge came in the form of a person. He thought that he should be more worried that a trained assassin was on his trail, but he knew that if push came to shove he could disappear just like always. 

With MI6 on his side he did pose just the smallest of challenges. He hadn’t expected for anyone to find him, let alone trace him to Japan in the first place. He had gone over the information a few times before he had found his mistake. To say that he was irritated with himself would be an understatement. But he had watched Agent 007 scream and rant for a long time in the locked hotel room in Japan. 

The agent’s face had triggered an alarm in a program that Q had created. It scanned all incoming passports into whatever country he was currently residing in and compared it to a database of people who were after him. It only took a few moments before Q was notified that the agent was in the country and following him. Q hacked into all of the electronics in his room without too much trouble, the phone was the most work, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen a million times before. He placed some of the information he had dug up about Agent 007 after he had chased him out of South Africa. 

It barely took any more effort from Q than any other day (he had been tracked before and lost them). On the other hand if he allowed Agent 007 to get too close, along with MI6, they would be there at his next slip up. 

But Q found that he was just too bored to not at least spy on the guy. He grabbed the mug and took a sip before exchanging it for the laptop. 

It didn’t take long for Q to get into the security system cameras. He had hacked into the central computer system while researching 007. He left a number of back doors in the code of the system while he did so. A few of them had been found and closed up, which was part of the reason that he was slightly worried about them finding him. Who ever tan their tech department knew what they were doing.

He found 007 in the director’s office pacing as he ranted. There was another man with 007 and the director, Mallory. Q opened another window and found that he was William Tanner, the Chief of Staff for MI6.

The cameras didn’t have microphones in them so he had to hack 007’s new phone (he had ditched the last one in Tokyo) in order to get sound.

“He’s using me against me, Tanner!” 007 shouted.

Q smiled, just a little proud of how angry he had made the agent.

“I caught that, thank you,” Tanner answered flatly.

“Sit down,” Mallory said as if he were an exasperated parent. 

007 didn’t seem to hear him, however because he continued to pace. He started muttering under his breath and Q couldn’t make out what he was actually saying. He lifted his arm to punch the wall and that seemed to be the last straw for Mallory.

“Sit down, 007,” Mallory yelled as he stood up. 007 turned to look at him. “I don’t particularly need a fist shaped hole in my wall. If I do I’ll let you know. Until then: sit _down_.”

007 stood unmoving for a moment, and Q might have paid to see the look on his face, but alas, the cameras were not positioned in a way that he could. He sat down in the chair without another word.

“Good. Now, what do we know?” Mallory started, slowly sitting back down in his chair and folding his hands on his desk. He put up his hand with an exasperated expression a second later and added, “Other than he knows everything about you and isn’t afraid to flaunt it.”

“He’s a little shit,” 007 offered. 

Q smirked.

“Not helping,” Tanner scolded.

“It’s all we know about him,” 007 countered.

“He has a valid point,” Mallory conceded.

“We know he’s English, or at least sounds English. We know he was working for the Japanese and had an American passport that was registered to a man who died six years ago. We also know that he’s probably got at least fifty IQ points on all of us,” Tanner countered. Q decided he liked him, and not just because he said that Q was smarter than all of them.

For a moment Q wondered why Tanner hadn’t been the one promoted to M when the old M died. He made a note to look into William Tanner further when he was done watching the top men in MI6 argue about how to track him down.

Mallory’s phone rang and he picked it up at once. “Send her in,” he said after a moment.

A woman walked into the room and stood behind another chair sitting next to the one 007 was currently inhabiting. Q did another quick search through the MI6 employee database using her picture. She was the second in command in MI6’s Q-Branch, nicknamed R since they called the head of Q-Branch Q.

“What have you found?” Mallory asked.

“It’s definitely Q,” she said in a slightly resigned voice.

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t been chasing Q,” 007 snapped.

She huffed. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the chair she was standing behind.

“Be my guest,” Mallory said, taking a more comfortable position in his own chair.

She sat down and looked between all of the men. “Not Q as in Quartermaster, but Q as in _Q_.”

Silence filled the room. “Is that supposed to mean something to us?” Mallory asked.

“Q – the man you’re chasing, not the Major – is one of the best hackers to grace this earth. The first of Silva’s security protocols, he _invented_ them.”

Q made a snap decision that he knew he was going to live to regret, but didn’t care. He quickly typed out a text to 007’s phone and sent it. 

007 pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at it without anyone noticing him. _I like her. -Q_ Q watched his body go stiff and he started grinning to himself. 

“So he could easily get legitimate employment?” Mallory verified.

The woman nodded. “Easily. There are countries – including our own, probably – who would look the other way when it came to his past in order to get him on their side.”

“Then why terrorize his own country?” 007 asked. He sounded genuinely curious, as if Q’s actions were foreign to him. Beyond understanding, even.

“Q’s not a terrorist. He’s a hit man. He’s brought in for specialized jobs, only ones he finds interesting, if rumor is to be believed.”

“A cyber hit man?”

“There are a lot of things you can do to someone without ever being near them,” the woman said a little darkly. “I would have thought you would have known that after the recent events.”

The room fell silent again, everyone looking more tense than before.

“How can you be sure it’s him?” Tanner asked.

“Every programmer has a thumbprint. And every piece of code bears that mark, if you know what you’re looking for.”

“How do we find him?” Mallory asked.

There was a beat of hesitation. “You don’t.”

Q sent 007 another text. _She’s right –Q_

“What do you mean: ‘You don’t’?” Mallory asked accusingly.

“I mean the only way to find him is for him to let you. The only way to do that is to hire him. No one knows anything about him.” 

“Why don’t we just hire him? Lure him somewhere and grab him?” Tanner suggested.

_Bad idea. –Q_

“You’re not _listening_. He’s a genius. Pure, unadulterated genius.”

“Silva was a genius. Didn’t save him,” 007 said darkly.

“Yes, _but_ Silva’s head was clouded by revenge. And in case you forgot, he won.” R sighed. “Take our IQs.” She pointed at all of the men in the room. Mallory, Tanner, then 007. “120, 126, 137, plus mine, which is significantly higher than all of yours, and combine them. Then square it, and maybe you can match Q’s.”

 _I_ really _like her. –Q_.

“You’re being a tad over-dramatic,” 007 said.

“I thought it might allow you to understand.”

“We found him once,” Mallory broke in.

“A fluke. He won’t make the same mistake.”

“I think he’ll get sloppy again,” 007 said plainly.

“What could I have said that gave you that idea?” she asked.

“Nothing you said. He’s texting me right now.” 007 held up his phone. 

R grabbed the phone from him and read through the texts. “Interesting,” she mumbled with a small smirk starting to build on her lips.

“What’s interesting? He wants attention, usually considered the opposite of interesting,” Tanner chimed in.

“If he wanted attention he could have it from the whole world. That’s not why he’s doing this.”

_Should I be complimented that you think so highly of my skills, or irritated that you think you know me so well? –Q_

She looked up at the camera in the corner that Q was looking though and smirked. “I suppose a bit of both.”

“R,” Mallory said, bringing her attention back to them. “If he doesn’t want attention why’s he doing it?” 

“Hell if I know. Maybe he thinks Bond’s pretty.”

_I do not find Agent 007 pretty or any variation thereof. –Q_

“Correction. He doesn’t find Bond pretty.”

Tanner and Mallory both cracked smiles. 

The door opened slowly and Q couldn’t see who handed from behind the door R a note before they left. She read it quickly before handing it to Mallory. Q’s brows furrowed at the sudden change. The room fell silent, and Mallory picked up a note and pen from his desk. He scribbled a note and handed it to R who handed it to 007.

007 stood up and followed R out of the room. Q started changing cameras to follow them, but they still didn’t say anything. Suddenly R stopped and pointed at a supply closet door. 007 seemed confused.

She gave an exasperated sigh and pulled out her phone. She waved it, pointed at the door again before pressing it into 007’s hand. He nodded and fished his phone out of his pocket. 007 went into the closet and came out a moment later. 

R started talking, but Q still only heard the empty silence of the utility closet. There weren’t any cameras that had sound around them as she explained whatever was going on. 

Q went to the Q-Branch computers and checked through all of the incoming and outgoing data in the room, scanning for anything pertaining to himself. Nothing showed. Q huffed and glared at the woman talking to 007 for a moment. “Clever girl.”

He went through the data again, widening his search to include Prague, where he was currently staying. That brought up a hit. They had booked a flight to Prague for 007. _What did I miss?_ Q asked himself. He sat thinking over what he had missed. He dove into the cell phone of the Quartermaster himself and listened to the conversation around him with two of his technicians. 

“There was a discrepancy in the seating on a flight to Prague from Tokyo. Kyle sent word to R via a piece of paper in case he was watching. Miss Moneypenny called and said that M has sanctioned the mission. They’re sending 007 out,” one of the techs said. 

The Quartermaster nodded thoughtfully. “Thank you, Irene. Take him the Walther.”

The tech who had been talking nodded and left. 

_Discrepancy? This has distracted me. Time to fall off the earth,_ Q thought to himself. He checked his clock and quickly calculated how much time he had until 007 touched down in the city. 

Four hours, five tops.

Plenty of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen)


	4. "Who Says I'm Going?" "I Do."

From the moment that Bond touched down in Prague he knew that Q wasn’t there. He didn’t know what exactly told him, he just knew. He still followed R’s instructions as she spoke in his ear, directing him to the hotel that Q was supposedly staying in. Maybe he had gotten sloppy again and left some clue as to where he was. For all of R’s ranting about how clever Q was, he left a distinct trail to follow. Better than breadcrumbs.

Bond pulled up in front of a rundown hotel with a fading wooden sign and only two floors tall. The complete opposite of the hotel in Tokyo. He walked past the front desk where a plump woman watched his passing carefully.

“He’s on the second floor. Room 203,” R’s voice chimed in. “There’s no security cameras past the lobby so I won’t have visual.”

Bond continued up the steps, only quietly humming to let her know that he had heard her. 

Luckily for Bond, the second floor hallway was completely devoid of any human life. He knelt in front of the door to room 203 and pulled out his lock pick. As he silently unlocked the door he thanked whatever luck he had that the young hacker hadn’t chosen a place with electric locks that he could and would control. Bond was in his element now. 

He heard the lock turn. Quietly, he exchanged the lock pick for his gun.

The room was small and crowded with a bed, a worn out couch, and a tiny coffee table with a cramped bathroom to the side. It didn’t take long for Bond to search the room and find himself alone. 

“He’s not here,” Bond told R.

She sighed sound lightly irritated. “Told you. I’ll book you a flight back,” she said as Bond continued to look around the room.

His eyes caught on a pad of paper on the coffee table. The sunlight that was filtered through thin curtains was reflecting off of indentations on the paper. Bond picked it up and tilted it up so that the letters continued to reflect and he could read it more clearly.

“R, I need you to run an address for me.”

“…Alright,” she said with a slight hint of hesitation. “Go.”

Bond read off one of the addresses on the paper. There were two, but Bond only gave her the one in Prague and not the one in Costa Rica.

“It’s a steel manufacturing plant, why? What did you find?” 

“Did it flag anything in the system?”

“Not any of the big stuff. What did you find?”

“What about the small stuff?”

“I’m working on it. We’re good, not magic. Since Silva we’ve had more tips than we can handle. Not to mention what the rest of the agencies are sending to us. It’ll take time,” she paused before speaking warily. “Bond, what did you _find_?”

“Nothing. Don’t wait up,” Bond said before disconnecting the earpiece. He smirked slightly. He could practically hear her annoyed muttering. 

Bond left the hotel, the woman at the front desk still watching him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he expected to find at the plant, but he knew it couldn’t be good if Q had jotted down the address before making himself scarce.

The industrial district was across town and it took two hours for Bond to get near the address. He parked a block up the street and around the corner in case the building was of any interest and he needed to run. 

He left his suit jacket and tie in the back seat of the car. It wouldn’t make a lot of difference if someone saw him, but a man in a white button down was slightly less conspicuous than a man in a three thousand pound bespoke suit snooping around an industrial warehouse.

He got out of the car and walked the block back to the building. He climbed the chain-link fence and crossed into the yard of the building. There were metal shavings and rejected chunks across the cracked concrete. Bond snuck closer, watching his step as he continued closer to the building. 

The building was tall and wide with metal sheeting for walls. There weren’t any windows for at least twenty feet up and no way to get up that high, at least on that side of the warehouse. He circled around to the back of the building, finding a manager’s office with a small window. 

The man sitting inside was reading schematics on the computer and going over identical plans on his desk, making notes on both copies. Bond didn't concern himself with that, however. The window to the factory was far more telling. 

What looked like stacks of metal sheets that must have been hollowed out were being packed with foam and rifles that looked to be customized, though Bond couldn’t be positive from the distance he was at.

He counted the people inside and how many guns were probably also inside, loaded or not. He knew he couldn’t take all of them on at once, not by himself, so he slipped away from the window and went back to the car, surprisingly, and thankfully without notice. Dying under attack from arms dealers was not his ideal death. He wanted to at least catch Q first. 

Once he was in the car he called Moneypenny.

“Hello, James,” she greeted. “How’s Prague? I heard it’s nice this time of year.”

“Could be better, would you be so kind as to put me though to M?” he asked sweetly. He started the car and drove off, checking his rear-view mirror for anyone following him almost impulsively.

“One second.” He was put on hold a moment later. MI6 didn’t have any hold music that played, leaving Bond to listen to the sound of the street and cars passing. Every minute that passed as he maneuvered the car further away from the building he relaxed just a little more. He had trouble believing that Q hadn’t seen him. He had been watching him while he was inside MI6 after all. At the same time he was sure that he hadn’t been seen. The two feelings clashed in his gut as he continued to check his rearview mirror more than the road in front of him.

M’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “What is it, 007?”

“I happened upon an illegal arms dealer while searching for the hacker, ‘Q,’” Bond explained, cutting right to the chase, Mallory wasn’t one for pleasantries if he could avoid it.

“How exactly did you ‘happen upon’ an illegal arms dealer while searching for the hacker in a hotel room halfway across town from your current location?” Mallory asked. He sounded a cross between irritated and resigned over the situation.

“Serendipity,” Bond offered with a grin in his voice.

Mallory gave a tired sigh. “How large is the operation?”

“I counted at least ten in the room as well as the manager who was going over schematics for a customization.”

Mallory sighed again. “Send the address to Miss Moneypenny and get yourself a place to stay. We could use a win, but we have to be careful about this.”

“Yes, sir,” Bond said smoothly.

“Do _not_ act without my explicit permission.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

Mallory hung up and Bond went about finding himself a hotel room. It would be a long night and a longer few days.

* * *

It was almost a week before Bond heard from MI6 again. He had spent the time mostly on his computers trying to find every ounce of information that existed on the building and its layout. He found more than he had dared to hope, but he still couldn’t act without back up. 

When he resigned himself to that fact he started circling himself in crime rings looking for connections and information on the operation. He sent everything he found to Intel, but never heard anything back.

When he got the call from Moneypenny telling him that his intel had been verified and they were sending back up Bond felt more irritated than relieved that he was actually going to get to do something. 

It wasn’t until the back up actually showed up that Bond understood how desperate Mallory really was for a win.

“Four Double-0s? Overkill don’t you think?” Bond asked as the three other agents came into the room. 006, Alec Trevelyan, sat on Bond’s bed with his back against the headboard and picked at the remnants of Bond’s room service. He and Bond had been made Double-0s around the same time and considered themselves friends. 

002, Christopher Smith, sat on the arm of a chair in the corner of the room. He gave Bond an appraising look. He was the newest Double-0, Ronson’s replacement. Bond didn’t like him.

“Mallory needs a win. He wants to make sure it’s done right,” 008, Denise Addams, said, sitting on the dresser next to the TV. She was a few years younger than Bond, though she had been a Double-0 almost 6 years longer. Bond considered her a friend … to an extent. She was the type that would cut all ties and leave you for dead if she thought it would get the job done faster.

“And the new kid needs breaking in,” Alec added. 

“Do not,” Smith protested.

The three veteran agents gave him a disbelieving look. 

Denise looked back to Bond. “It doesn’t matter why we’re here. We’re here. Alec, the bag,” 008 said. Alec pulled a duffle bag onto the bed and unzipped it. He handed a rolled up piece of poster-sized paper to Denise who slid off the cabinet to take it from him.

“Q also sent you some goodies,” Alec said, taking out a silver case and handing it to Bond. Bond opened it, finding a gun, an earpiece, and a new cell phone. Bond smirked. R must think Q was in his phone again, though he hadn’t gotten anymore text messages from the man.

Denise unrolled the paper and used her phone, the room service menu, and a switchblade she always had on hand to hold the building plans flat. “There are three doors in if you count the loading dock. Two people there, one at the front entrance, someone who can get in without kicking the door down, and someone at the back door.”

“Alec and Christopher take the loading dock. I’ll take the back door. Denise, you take the front, you know Czech, correct?”

“Enough, but…” she hesitated. 

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to go? They already know you here,” Smith filled it with a look on his face like he was trying to figure Bond out. 

“I don’t think I’ll be a welcome sight. I got caught in bed with a mob boss’s daughter a few days back. They work closely with the group in question.”

Denise and Alec leveled him with a flat look. 

“Then that’ll have to work,” Alec said with a shrug.

“Works for me,” Smith added.

“Tomorrow at noon we’ll meet back here and head over there. Go in guns blazing,” Alec said sounding unimpressed with the plan.

“Go in on Denise’s count.”

“Once I’m in I can provide more information on the targets, since we don’t have anything to go on,” 008 said lightly. She threw a sharp look at Bond who rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been talking to a few people and found some names that can get you in the door,” Bond said, trying not to sound defensive. They didn’t have much information – which was why they were the ones there – and she didn’t like it. 

“See you all at noon,” Alec said in a slightly dismissive tone. Denise shot him an analytical look that bordered on annoyed. 

“See you at noon,” she said before rolling up the paper, pocketing her knife and phone. Smith followed behind her and Bond thought he heard him whisper to Denise “Are they sleeping together?” and Denise answer “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

When the door clicked shut Bond turned to Alec who arched an eyebrow at him. “Moneypenny told me about the hacker you’re following. Wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Alec said sounding almost bored.

“I’m fine. She worries too much,” Bond replied. He opened the mini-bar and pulled out a tiny bottle of vodka. He pulled the top off of the bottle and threw his head back as he drained it. 

“I didn’t say that she was the one who wanted to make sure you were okay,” Alec said quietly. He watched every one of Bond’s actions carefully. To any other person he would have look impassive about the situation, but Bond could read the concern that was written in his eyes, purposeful there so that Bond knew.

“I’m fine,” Bond snapped. “Mother hen.”

Alec gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re fine? M ordered you shot. You fell off of a train and a bridge, almost died. Made everyone think you were dead. Came back. Couldn’t pass your tests. And watched M die after blowing up your house. Now you’re hunting a kid because he has a knack for computers. But yeah, you’re fine.” 

Bond shot a glare at the other agent. “I didn’t know you kept such close tabs on me, Alec. I’m flattered.” His voice was like venom in his mouth and he knew that he would come to regret treating Alec so poorly. Not because Alec would hold it against him, he would forgive him the moment after the words left his mouth. He would regret it because he was confirming everything that Alec was saying with every harsh word of denial. 

“James, listen to yourself. When was the last time you were even sober?” Alec asked.

“When was the last time you were sober?” Bond snapped. He could see plainly for a split second that Alec thought he sounded like a petulant child.

“James. You need to take some leave,” Alec said firmly.

“You worry to much.”

Alec stood up. He clapped Bond on the shoulder, Bond thought he might say something else, but he only left the room with his lips pressed into a thin line.

The silence hung heavier in the room than he had thought, or hoped. He almost would have preferred if Alec had continued to make snide remarks and lecture him. The silence was just a little bit suffocating, silence had always been harder to ignore than words.

* * *

“Seventeen,” Denise mumbled under her breath. Bond was stationed in front of a steel door listening to 008 talk to the makeshift leader that ran the small ring. 

She made a pretty convincing criminal if Bond were to judge. She had the disdain for human life down. “Do you distribute the ammunition as well?” she asked the ringleader. They had been able to detect her accent when she had introduced herself. Thinking that they were securing a large arms deal with a British criminal mastermind with connections all over the world, they had responded in English.

“Ammunition is not our…specialty. But there are many things we can do with the guns. We have a very skilled designer who if we had a more…stable investor we could make just about anything. The possibilities would be endless,” the man’s thickly accented voice replied.

“I see. Well then I think we should get started.” That was Bond’s cue. He slipped into the door that he had already picked the lock on. He glanced around the corner and saw the seventeen people that Denise had counted. She was standing in the middle of the room with a man in a suit. 

He saw Smith and Alec at the opening of the loading dock. He turned his attention back to the men and women who were oblivious to their presence. 

“Now,” Denise added.

“Eager,” was the only word that the man got out before shots started ringing out. Three dropped before anyone could do anything. Denise pulled out her gun and shot the man before he could even register what was happening. Bond shot off three more shots before he ducked back behind the corner of the wall. A bullet hit the side of the wall, making debris shower over him.

He ducked lower and shot off more rounds. Most were hidden from his view, though when one popped up over a desk to take aim at either 006 or 002 he fired, the man crumpled to the ground as Bond watched for more targets. 

The room fell abruptly silent. 

“I’m clear here. What do you guys see?” Bond asked. They had taken over all four corners (Smith having moved to the space kitty-corner to Bond), so between the four they should have been able to see any stranglers. 

“Nothing on my side,” Denise said quietly.

“No signs of life from my view,” Smith added.

“Clear here,” Alec said.

“You guys check for stragglers. I’ll check the office,” Denise said through the line. 

“Copy,” the other three answered in sync.

Bond moved forward, his gun still poised. He turned over bodies and checked for signs of life. It didn’t take long for the three of them to find that everyone in the building besides themselves was dead.

There were a few wounds between them. Denise’s arm had been grazed, but she hadn’t seemed to notice. Alec’s head was bleeding, though he wasn’t sure why. Bond hadn’t been hit though Smith had a bullet in his side. It wouldn’t need medical attention, but his pride was what had taken the largest hit anyway. 

Bond holstered his gun and turned to his colleges who were doing the same.

Denise came out of the room, stuffing something in her pocket. “Let’s get out of here.” They spaced out their departures and left from different directions.

They met back in the bar of the hotel almost three hours after the mission had been completed. It wasn’t so much meeting back up as it was sitting in the bar and waiting for everyone to show up to check that everyone was alive. Bond sat at the bar with a glass of scotch that he had been nursing. In his mind he kept rolling over the past few days.

He thought about how he had found the note sitting in the middle of the coffee table with deep grooves that could have only been made by someone making an effort to imprint the next page. He considered the fact that the rest of the room was clean, the bed was even still made, but that note had still been sitting in the middle of the room. He thought about the fact that there was still another address. 

And most of all the fact that Q hadn’t been at the plant.

Q had led him there. That much was obvious once Bond stopped to think about it. He had been sent to an illegal arms dealer by a terrorist that he was hunting. It was definitely a first. 

He drained his glass and tossed a few notes on the bar. He caught the eye of Alec, Denise, and Smith as he left. They each spared him a nod. 

After Bond was back in his room and had swept it for bugs and threats he took off his jacket and threw it over the back of the chair. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at it.

It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

“Q?” Bond said hesitantly. His phone didn’t buzz and no message popped up on the screen. “Ridiculous,” he mumbled, throwing the phone on the bed and sighing. He sat down in the chair and pulled the note out of his pocket. He’d gone over the indentations in pen so that they wouldn’t fade. The letters were curt and choppy, the black ink standing stark against the white paper.

More than once during the week he had gone to look up the second address, but every time he did he had the infuriating thought that he might be giving the bastard exactly what he wanted. Bond didn’t want to lose, he wanted even less for the other man to win. It was as plain in his mind as the ink was on the paper, but now he found that more layers existed. That he was being played and he didn’t know to what tune. 

Behind him his phone buzzed.

He stood up faster than he wanted to admit and went to the phone. _Can I help you, Agent 007? –Q_

Bond stared at the phone in silence for a long time before deciding on his answer. “You never worked with the people you sent me after, did you?” 

_No. –Q_

Bond stared back down at the phone. He had the chance to ask questions of the person he was chasing. A direct line, and he couldn’t figure out what he wanted to know, even with the million questions that were swirling in his mind.

_Was there something else? –Q_

“Why did you send me?” Bond asked impulsively.

No message came for a moment and Bond accepted that he wasn’t going to get an answer. _Because I’m not a terrorist, Agent 007. –Q_

“And you think turning over one illegal arms distributor is going to prove that to me?” Bond snapped.

_I don’t thing that I can ever prove it to you. You’re worn into your own ruts. Rusted into your thoughts. I have not illusions to this, Agent 007. –Q_

“Then why leave me the addresses?” 

_Because R was right. –Q_

“You think I’m handsome?” 

_Funny. –Q_

_I find you entertaining. –Q_

Bond didn’t have a response for him so he just kept his mouth shut.

_It was nice talking to you, Agent. Have fun in Costa Rica. –Q_

“Who says I’m going?”

_I do. –Q_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen)
> 
> Also, please excuse any and all misinformations I don't often deal with illegal arms dealers or the secret service.
> 
> Kudos & Comments = Love


	5. Everyone Lies

The paper in Bond’s pocket was beginning to soften under his touch as he continued to rub it between his fingers. It had become a bit of a habit for him and now that he was going to find just where the address given to him was, it seemed to have become essential to keep him focused. It was nearing three in the morning and in a few hours people would start to flow into the offices, but for now Bond was alone on the executive level behind Moneypenny’s desk. He had watched her type in her password that morning after the newest password change the day before. 

He flattened out the scrap of paper and typed the address that he had traced over in pen into the search. A map pulled up on the screen showing a dot on the edge of a river in Costa Rica in Limon. There were satellite images of a building and a small wooden dock on the river. 

No red flags popped up on it, which meant that MI6 didn’t have anything on it. There wasn’t anything there that anyone should care about but it would be worth looking into. He had a few months of leave due to his little field trip while in Prague and he was ready to go home and book himself a flight as soon as he got the information he needed. 

He continued digging for a few more minutes, hoping that there would be something that hadn’t thrown up a red flag but there might be something in the system that hadn’t been big enough to throw up a red flag.

Yet again: nothing. 

He wiped the history as best he could and logged out of the account before he left the building, not bothering to hide his face from the cameras as he had when he went in. Coming out of the building was easier to explain than why he was making a beeline for the executive level.

When he got home it was a little after four in the morning, but he had found a lot of energy in knowing what he wanted to do. He sat down at the computer and started typing. He found himself booking a flight to Costa Rica. He would have to charter a private flight to Limon after arriving in San Jose, but that would do just fine by him. Once the flight was booked Bond grabbed a bottle of scotch and climbed into bed, his back against the wall. His drinking habits had become sporadic and odd. Some nights he drank himself into a stupor until he passed out and other nights he never even looked at the bottle. Tonight was not one of the nights that he ignored the bottle.

It was hours later when he when he woke with a headache that he was all too familiar with. Bond pulled himself out of bed and grabbed one of the many go bags he kept packed in the back of his closet. He grabbed a cab to the airport and was out of the country before anyone in MI6 was informed that his passport, his actual passport not the one they provided, was pinged. 

When he landed in Costa Rica after two connections in the United States Bond got onto a crowded bus that smelt like sweat and Bond hated Q more with every second that passed pressed between the side of the bus and a woman holding a chicken. Really, could his trip get more stereotypical?

After arriving in the city Bond checked into a hotel that was secluded and set up more for honeymooners than business men, as was his preference. Tropical trees littered the property, cutting each building off from each other. It would be hell to have to work, but Bond was much more focused on the things off the hotel property. 

He took a cab to a building three streets from where the address was located and walked the rest of the way, sticking out like a sore thumb in the dirt roads outside Puerto Limón. Bond roamed around, looking like a lost tourist as he cased the building. It was a large warehouse and being in front of it told him little more than the satellite pictures from the MI6 maps. 

The building was better maintained and the operation more clean than the one in Prauge. Everyone coming in and out of the building seemed to know exactly what they needed to do. After a few minutes of watching the building unnoticeably from the side Bond left and started to observe and memorize the area around the building. Across the street was a bar that was obviously supported by the people in the warehouse. Bond made a mental note to return back after quitting time for a drink. On his way back to the hotel Bond’s phone rang with a text message. 

_Told you –Q_

Bond squeezed the phone tighter before stuffing it in his pocket and continuing back to the hotel. He didn’t need to be seen walking around talking to himself. He might have felt like his sanity was slipping, but he didn’t need other people to know that. When he was finally back in the privacy of his own hotel room and had checked for bugs out of habit he pulled out the phone and glared at it. “And what exactly have I done to deserve your sudden appearance?” Bond asked, sounding thoroughly irritated by the existence of Q. 

_You’re in Costa Rica. Exactly where I told you you’d be. –Q_

Bond could almost hear the words being said with the self satisfied tone that he had never actually heard from the hacker though most of his messages seemed to have it built into them. The agent found, to his own horror, that he could create almost any sentence that might be sent to him in the soft posh voice that he had heard for only a moment in South Africa.

He wanted to curse at the man, but didn’t want the give him the satisfaction of knowing that he got under Bond’s skin. He hadn’t perfected his mask of indifference to lose it because a boy provoked him. 

Instead he tossed the phone onto his bed and went to his balcony that looked out at the rainforest that surrounded the secluded hotel.

The world seemed to slip away as the gentle breeze moved through his short cropped hair. It was frighteningly easy to forget everything that had happened to him and everything that he had done over the past months. Tense muscles slowly relaxed, tension bleeding out of him as he continued to mentally separate himself from his own past until there was only him standing on the balcony. The rest of the world ceased to exist for a few precious moments.

Abruptly, he turned around and walked back into his room. The tension returned in increments as if he were donning invisible armor before leaving the room and going to the bar he had seen earlier that day.

He had a practiced ease about him as he went to the bar and ordered a beer. The bar was casual, most people going there after a long day of work and almost none of them posed any semblance of a threat. Bond sat at the bar and drank his beer while he listened to the conversation around him. 

After a while of listening to pointless conversations that surrounded him a woman in a red dress approached him. She leaned against the bar and smiled at him almost scornfully. 

“I presume you are Mr. Q’s correspondent,” she said bitterly. Her face was twisted like every word she spoke to him left a sour taste in her mouth. 

Bond had to work very hard not to reply with an equally disgusted look. Instead him smiled at her as charming as his ego could bear and replied, “I supposed I am.”

Something in her eyes flashed and she seemed infinitely more offended by his presence than she had been before. “He told us you’d be coming. It begs the question: what are you doing here? What is your purpose?”

Bond narrowed his eyes at her slightly, letting venom seep into her expression. “Mr. Q is a very buys man. I believe he wanted me to take a look and decide if the project you propose is of any interest.” He gave her another bitter smile. “Correct me if I’m wrong.” No one could ever say Bond wasn’t good at improv. 

“So the rumors are true. He only takes projects that interest him.” She looked Bond up and down as if inspecting him. “What does he find interesting about you, Mr…”

“Bond. James Bond. And I’m not sure what in particular he finds so interesting, though there are more than a few possibilities that spring to mind,” Bond said, his vice slipping into a familiar silky, seductive tone.

The woman was unfazed. “Well Mr. Bond. We’ll obviously have to verify who you are.” Her voice still had an air of disdain. “For obvious reasons. Will be in contact.” With that she turned and left the bar. 

Bond decided he didn’t like her. When Bond got back to the hotel he wanted nothing more than to sleep, but it was still early so he took to drinking what was in the minibar. There was a bug in his pocket the moment he broke the seal on the first bottle. 

Bond knew it could only be Q. Only he had that kind of timing. 

_Are you aware how much work you’ve just made for me –Q_

“You sound like you think I actually care,” Bond grumbled back. 

_Oh, are we sour because the pretty lady didn’t want to sleep with us? –Q_

“I like to think I have more style than that,” Bond all but snapped.

_What you think and reality do not always coincide –Q_

“Do you fancy yourself clever?”

_Yes –Q_

_For such an old man you are acting like a child –Q_

Bond glared at the phone but made no other response.

_However, that’s beside the point. –Q_

“Pray tell, what is the point of your commentary?” Bond sat down on the edge of the bed, phone in hand.

_To tell you that you are, by far, the worst spy I have ever witnessed –Q_

“Do you witness a lot of spies?” Bon asked.

_Stupid question. You know what I do –Q_

“Yes. I. Do,” Bond ground out.

_I hope that wasn’t meant to be threatening –Q_ Bond rolled his eyes.

_I had papers for you. Set up for their verification process. I just needed whatever name caught your fancy. But you gave them your real name –Q_

“That a problem for the boy genius?” Bond left the phone on his bed as he went to the closet to hang up his suit. When he came back in his pants another text was waiting for him.

_No I have to connect your actual identity to me and other illegal activities to make you look rogue –Q_

Bond’s voice dropped to a dangerous growl coming from the back of his throat. “You attached my name to criminal records?”

_I’ll reverse it as soon as they’re done –Q_

_Anyone with your complete MI6 file would know it couldn’t be real –Q_

“Of course. The boy genius couldn’t make a mistake.”

_You’re the one who gave her your real name –Q_

“She might have known I was lying and that would be counter productive,” Bond answered. 

_It’s the criminal underworld! Everyone lies! –Q_

Bond kept himself from throwing his phone, but only just. He was being told how to do his job by a kid who hid behind a computer. The kid wreaked havoc on lives that he had never seen. He had never looked a man in the eye as he pulled the trigger. He had probably taken innocent lives and never lost a moment of sleep because he couldn’t distinguish the victims from the perpetrators. 

“Unless you have something helpful to tell me, like your location, I think we’re done here,” Bond said, his voice deceptively smooth. 

There was a slight hesitation before the next text message. _Goodnight, Agent –Q_

As soon as Bond read the text he felt better. It didn’t make logical sense, he knew. Just because Q had said goodnight did not mean that he was going to stop spying on the agent, or commenting. There was nothing to stop him from sending another text the moment it caught his fancy. Still, something in Bond relaxed. And he allowed it. He allowed himself to relax for no reason, because he knew that he might not get the chance again soon. Bond stripped and took a shower, letting even more of the stress and tension roll off of him with the rivulets of water.

He toweled off and climbed into bed. The stress was returning and he needed to get some sleep if he had to continue dealing with the same people he had that day.

* * *

The next morning Bond woke with the early sun and did a quick rep of push-ups and sit-ups before showering again. He dressed and only checked his phone before he slid it into his pocket on his way out the door to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. There was one text from Q as well as a voicemail from Moneypenny. Bond read the text first. 

_Your records have been corrected –Q_ Bond couldn’t tell if it was meant to be read in a short told-you-so tone or a sheepish tone from Bond biting at him earlier. He hoped it was the latter, but the odds were against him.

He listened to the voicemail next, which was much more clear. “James, you know they hate it when you disappear. I mean, what could possibly be in Costa Rica? Other than an address that my computer searched while I was at home, sleeping, And before you start asking, they know. Mallory knew you played by your own rules, but he was hoping you’d at least be playing the same game. Come home, James.” Moneypenny’s voice was soft through the last of the message and Bond might have felt bad if he thought those words hadn’t been written by someone else and made for her to say.

Bond went to breakfast in the hotel restaurant the next morning and wasn’t there five minutes before the woman from the night before slid into the chair across from him. “Good morning, Mr. Bond

“Hello,” Bond greeted. He sipped his coffee and waited for her to stat her business.

“I’ve brought a car to take you to the facility.”

“That’s very kind,” Bond said bitterly. He held his eye contact with her. She shifted in her seat irritably when Bond made no move to leave. They continued to try and stare each other down. Bond didn’t like her in the slightest. Her disdainful look that never seemed to waver dug under his skin in a way usually reserved for dark haired hackers. Still, he could understand where she was coming from. He was a stranger who was walking into her business to see if she was worth Q’s time. Most of her anger was probably directed more at Q than at him. Bond could understand that.

When he finished his breakfast he paid and followed her wordlessly to a sliver sedan sitting in the parking lot. He slid into the passenger seat and flashed her a smile. “Shall we, Mr. Bond?” she asked as she started the car.

“We shall,” he said with a smirk as the car peeled out of the carpark.

* * *

The warehouse she took him to was like a train station of all things illegal. Arms were concentrated to one room in the back with four people removing them from one crate, counting them, and putting them in another. Drugs were in another room, with people cutting it and repacking them. Forgeries were in the making in the back. It ran like a well oiled machine, everyone knew what their jobs were and no one considered not doing it. 

Bond lied through the whole thing easily and when he got back to his hotel room he still had a number of questions that had yet to be answered. 

“Q,” Bond said lightly as he flopped on his bed, too tired to bother being particularly mean to the younger man.

_How was your field trip, Agent –Q_

“Informative,” Bond answered easily. It wasn’t guilt making him talk to Q like a normal person, it was just second nature to kill someone with kindness. 

_Those are the best kinds –Q_

Bond cracked a smile. Apparently Q was also feeling a bit more polite. “What use do they have for you?” Bond asked causally.

_Money laundering –Q_

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not the police. It’s not really my problem.” Bond smirked at the ceiling as he laid on the bed with his hand covering the phone on his chest.

_Of course not. –Q_

_Since it’s not your problem was there something you wanted? -Q_

“What is it, Q? Why send me there?” Bond asked. 

_You didn’t ask where the money goes –Q_

“Where does the money go?” Bond asked.

_And there lies the mystery. Have fun –Q_

“Bastard,” Bond muttered in a way that was absolutely not fond. “Goodnight, Q.”

_Goodnight, Bond. –Q_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen) for being an awesome beta reader.
> 
> I'm back! Well, maybe. I can't guarantee when the next update will be...but you can have this one. Enjoy.


	6. Blow Yourself To Hell

Q was a bit of a voyeur. He always assumed it was because of the access the he had to the cameras. He could watch so he did watch. More than a few times he had picked someone to follow. Usually they were diplomats and he was short on cash, but that was beside the point. Q was in the MI6 CCTV cameras watching Bond sit across from R and try and convince her to look into the information that Bond had gathered while in Costa Rica. 

“Go talk to someone in Intel. Checking information is not my job,” R bit at him, stabbing at her salad, more forcefully than was probably necessary. 

“I don’t have any friends in Intel,” Bond said with an attempt at a sweet smile. 

“You don’t have any friends in Q-Branch either,” R answered.

“Please, R.”

“I’m not going to look at the info if you won’t tell me where you got it,” R shot back. 

“You know where I got it.”

“Do I? I think I’d like some confirmation of that, if you wouldn’t mind,” R almost growled at him. 

Bond shot her a glare and Q almost laughed out loud. The agent looked so petulant, glaring at the woman like she had just taken a toy away. Q was sitting in a hotel suite with his feet propped up on the end of the couch. There was a steaming mug next to him full of tea and his computer on his lap. It was really Q’s idea of a perfect day.

He was enjoying his game with Bond more than he should have. Bond was something different and Q liked different. The world could get so boring, especially when you have everything in it at your fingertips. Q loved what he did, don’t get him wrong. He loved being able to sit in his hotel room on the other side of the planet from the people he was working for. He loved being able to dive into code for days on end and then crash without anyone bothering him. 

In short, Q loved his life, but sometimes messing with Bond was better. 

_Have you figured it out yet? -Q_

He watched Bond pull the phone out of his pocket and glare at it before typing out a quick response. 

_Be patient. Have some faith._

“You want to know where this leads just as much as I do,” Bond said, refocusing on R.

“I know where it leads. Me losing my job,” she answered sharply.

Bond stared at her for a minute and she started to stand up. His shoulders sagged slightly and his face looked almost sincere. “Please, R. I need your help.”

She stared down at him, obviously having an internal battle before caving. “Fine. Give me what you have.”

Bond smiled brightly and stood up, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles, sliding a piece of paper into her grip. She ripped her hand out of his grip with a glare. “Save the charms for Q. He seems to appreciate them more,” she said before storming off. 

Bond smirked before sending Q a text. _Even R knows you like me_

Q smirks down at the message and texts back quickly. _She’s clever but she’s not always right –Q_

_Not always, but this time she is_

_You think far too highly of yourself –Q_

Q watched Bond smile and put the phone back in his pocket and left the canteen. He was pretty in a slightly generic way. Strong jaw, striking blue eyes, even if you could only see them in pictures, broad shoulders, sharp suits. He was a lot like what Q considered his type. But he was hunting him and his “charms” were a little on the stale, overused, pickup lines side. 

As Bond made his way up to Eve Moneypenny’s office, Q got up from his spot on the hotel bed and went to the shower to wash off the sickly feeling that came whenever he went too long without sleeping. And three days might have been a little too long. But he had a project he had to finish preparing for if he was going to get JoJo on board with it. 

After his shower he got dressed in a pair of jeans and a loose t-shirt because he needed to feel human after three days in his pajamas, but there wasn’t anyone to impress. He made himself another mug of Earl Grey and ordered room service. The mindless game he played on his phone made the time pass quickly enough, because God knew that if he sat back down at his computer he wouldn’t bother getting up again for the room service.

Once he had eaten he sat back down with his computer and opened a chat with JoJo who was always online at the same time. 

**Still following that MI6 agent around? –JJ** She sent as soon as she saw him log into their private chat room. 

**Still insisting that you don’t follow certain people around? –Q**

**Tracking bank accounts is very different than tracking whereabouts with CCTV cameras –JJ**

Q laughed at that.

**Of course it’s not –Q**

**You’re a stalker –JJ**

**Am not –Q**

**He’s a threat and I’m just making sure I’m safe –Q**

**You want to get in his pants. Is he pretty? Send me a picture. I need to see if I approve –JJ**

As much as he would have preferred to not, he knew better than to argue with JoJo. He took a Bond’s service picture and sent it to her through the same secured line that they were using to talk to each other. 

**Oh, I approve. Nice choice. Now where are the real pictures you’re keeping from me? –JJ**

**Keep something from you? Don’t be silly –Q**

A notification pinged in the corner telling him that Bond and said his name. He turned back on the microphone in Bond’s phone that was sitting conveniently on the table. He was sitting in a bar with Tanner and Moneypenny.

“I don’t believe you,” Moneypenny said, sipping her drink.

“You wound me,” Bond answered with a look of mock offense.

“I don’t believe you either, but if it makes you actually do your job instead of running off to Costa Rica, I’m cool with it,” Tanner said, downing a shot of alcohol and placing the glass upside down next to three full shot glasses and one other empty one and a pint of beer.

“I always forget how much you actually drink,” Bond said, amused.

“Have to do something to make up for the stress you lot cause me,” Tanner replied, not nearly as amused. 

“Do you worry?” Moneypenny jibbed, prodding him with her elbow.

“Yes. About England falling to its knees because this idiot decides to blow himself to hell at the wrong moment.”

“So I can blow myself to hell if I do it at the right time?”

“I will give you an invitation to do it when that time comes,” Tanner said flatly, downing another shot.

“It’s like neither of you actually like me,” Bond said sounding wounded. 

**You there? –JJ**

Q’s attention snapped back to his chat with JoJo and he sent out a quick apology as he read the last message. 

**You do nothing but keep things from me. Now spill. I want to see those pictures –JJ**

The new message from her came in with a small ping.

**Then where are my pictures –JJ**

**I don’t have any for you right now. I’ll make an effort to find some for you. –Q**

**Good. The fewer clothes the better. –JJ**

**I know the rules –Q  
**

He rechecked the CCTV footage of Bond, but he was no longer in the bar. He was outside the bar talking on the phone. Q unmuted it again.

“Tell me where you got the information. I want to hear it,” R said over the line.

“I can’t tell you where I got the information and you know it,” Bond argued, forcing his voice lower as people passed.

“You can and you will if you want to know what I found,” R answered stubbornly.

“I am not telling you whether or not I have been in contact with a wanted person of interest over a secured _MI6_ line,” Bond continued. He was hunching his back against the wind that must have been whipping down the street to make the bottom of his coat hit his legs so violently. 

“Fine. Two blocks east from where you are there’s a coffee shop that you will go to if you want this information. I’m there now.” And then she hung up and Q had to keep himself from laughing at the offended look on Bond’s face.

The agent ran back into the bar to pay his tab and say his goodbyes to Moneypenny and Tanner who only shrugged and Tanner might have mumbled, “done with Q my arse.”

In a few minutes Bond was walking into a coffee shop that had three people inside, including R. “This might be the most conspicuous meeting I’ve ever been to in my life,” Bond said with a grin as he sat down in a booth across from R.

“You obviously don’t work very closely with Q-Branch,” she replied with a sharp look. “Now tell me where you got the information because if you don’t I’m not going to tell you.”

“I got the address from Q. I went to investigate on my own and gathered that intel independently.”

“Good. Now, this is some shit you’ve found yourself in,” she said pulling things up on her tablet and sliding it across the table for him to look at.

“I found at least 3 million dollars that can be traced going through them in the past year. And that was a rudimentary search. We don’t even have information on them. They aren’t filtering any of that money through to any known terror cells, but they might just be good at hiding it. I need more time.” She finished by sitting back in the booth and letting Bond look at the files in front of him.

“How much more time until we have enough to get Mallory to move?” Bond asked, looking up at her stoically.

“To dig up the things they really don’t want us to find?” Bond nodded.

“Three weeks and a team of at least four, all of which would have to be well versed in hacking and analysis, and let’s face it. There are only three of us that can do both jobs quickly,” she said, shaking her head. She thought it was a lost cause, but Bond didn’t think that Q would have given up such a large potential client if there was something about them that he didn’t like.

“How long by yourself? You were able to get this today.”

“I was able to take most of the day off from doing my actual job because Q thought that I was doing something for him. And I called in a favor. I can’t do it on my own. It won’t even take a long time. It’s not possible.”

“R…” he started. 

“No. You want more? Do it yourself or get Mallory to sanction it. Not my problem,” she cut him off, standing up and grabbing her tablet. “The game ends here, 007. It’s time to fold.”

Q watched her leave and then watched Bond pull his phone out of his pocket. A minute later a text popped up in the corner of his screen.

_I need to talk to you_

Q let him stew a while and watched the blond take a cab home before replying. _Miss me already? –Q_

Bond pulled the phone out of his pocket quickly and checked the message as he fumbled with his keys.

“Don’t I always,” he responded as he walked into his apartment.

_Yes. Now what do you want. I’m working. –Q_

“Little short today are we?” Bond asked with a laugh.

_I see you got your information from R –Q_

“Yes, though she doesn’t have the manpower to get Mallory to move on it. I need more information. I don’t know what they did to piss you off and maybe whatever’s pissed you off is what I need to know to get Mallory to agree,” Bond pleaded and even if he knew that it was a manipulation it was still pretty fun to see the agent want something that Q had. Something that wasn’t his location, anyway.

For a few minutes he just sat and stared at his computer, weighing the pros and cons. Pro: Bond would owe him. Pro: Bond might stop chasing him if he didn’t think he was dangerous. Con: he would break his very first rule, don’t get involved in things that aren’t your business.

_I’ll send you the file in the morning. –Q_

_Goodnight, Bond –Q_

“Goodnight, Q. And thank you.”

Q signed off and shut the computer. He really needed to get some sleep if he was going to reconsider properly what he had promised Bond, which he knew he would.

He crawled into bed and pulled the covers over him and swore to himself that he wouldn’t dream of icy blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry, you guys. I've had this three quarters of the way written for like a month, but then i found a new show and a new pairing and I don't know what to do with my life because it is killing me. But I will keep updating this fic because right now it's the only one I have going. So... thank you all for sticking with me for this long hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	7. Like Any Good Secret Agent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond isn't worried about Q. That would absurd. He just spends a week thinking about nothing but Q because he really really wants that report.

The next day Bond woke on his stiff couch with a kinked neck, a throbbing shoulder, and no message from Q. He tried not to be disappointed, after all Q had to be a busy man with all the running from the law and it was no small thing Bond was asking for. So he pushed away the feeling and rolled his shoulder until there was feeling in his hand again and any thought that Bond's crackpot psychiatrist my have mistaken for disappointment or longing was long gone. 

He left his phone on the kitchen counter when he went to shower and tried to think of anything that wasn't Q. In some moments the effort was focused on not worrying that Q was going to back out of their agreement and the next was Bond trying not to think about black curly hair and a sly smile he had only seen on blurry CCTV clips. When he got out, he fought the urge to go to the kitchen and check his phone and instead spent longer than necessary brushing his teeth and picking out jeans and a jumper. Once in a soft black jumper and his favorite pair of jeans he went to the kitchen and set to making coffee. As it brewed he stared at his phone sitting on the counter. He didn't want to check it again, feeling desperate and like he was loosing a game he didn't understand. Still, there was no one to see him and if Q was watching how many times he checked his phone then the man certainly had time to send Bond the stupid report. He faced off against the glass and plastic with somber ferocity usually reserved for world domination crazed terrorist leaders. 

The phone dinged and Bond would deny to his dying day and then through all his time in hell exactly how quickly he snatched the phone. Unfortunately for his already abused pride there was no message from Q, only an email to one of his fake accounts advertising a new weekender bag. He put the phone back down and scrubbed his hands over his face. _Get a hold of yourself, Bond._

For the next three hours Bond sat around his house watching TV then losing interest, working out in starts and stops, and scrolling through his different Facebook profiles maintained by Intel and Q branches. Still, nothing could distract him from the fact that he still didn’t have that report. 

After he had reset his phone for the second time, hoping that maybe his phone was just broken, he was so disgusted with himself that he got off the couch, and stuffed his phone in one of the many empty drawers. He found a burner phone in the cookie jar on top of the fridge and left the flat. Once outside in the chilled air he wondered where he was going to go. It wasn't like he had a lot of friends to start with and his only friend he could actually talk to about Q that wouldn't rat on him was on some deep cover mission in the middle of Russia. 

For a moment he considered going to Six and finding a junior agent to throw around, but decided he didn’t want anyone thinking he was going to start training the new ones. That was just inviting trouble. Instead Bond stepped away from the door and onto the sidewalk with no destination and started taking turns at random.

By the time Bond got back to his flat the sun had gone down and was on its way back up. His aimless walking had quickly turned into a pub-crawl when he met a couple of guys having a bachelor party. As soon as the door was shut behind him he looked over at the kitchen drawer where his phone was hidden from himself. Try as he did he was still unable to keep himself away and found that the only messages he had was one from Moneypenny asking if he was going to join her and Tanner for drinks and then another about two hours later that said "Apparently not." He texted back a quick excuse of having lost his phone and then went into his message thread with Q and saw nothing new. 

In a flash of annoyance he quickly typed out a message asking what the hell was up and sent it before he could think better of it. 

He stripped his sweater off, kicked his shoes away and crawled into the mound of blankets and pillows that was his bed. He was asleep in moments.

When he woke up around noon there was still no message. He tried not to think anything of it and instead sent another antagonist text. By seven there was still no reply and Bond was trying to rationalize his worry. "Q?" he asked the dark phone. 

Nothing happened and Bond could feel his frustration starting to build from the unfamiliar feeling of being ignored. Just as he was about to hide the phone away again it started to ring with a blocked number. Bond answered faster than he'd done anything before in his life. 

"Bond, is there a reason you're bombing my phone?" The voice was young and soft, just a reminder that behind all Bonds recent globetrotting was a man too young to understand the game he was playing. The voice was also pissed off.

"You said you would send me the report," Bond said dumbly. 

"Well it's quite difficult to do so when I'm on the run from your employer and you won't stop texting me," Q said. 

"You usually at least text me back saying not to bug you," Bond said, feeling very much like a child being scolded. It also reminded him of Vesper with a twist in his heart. 

"Aw, Bond, did you think I got kidnapped and murdered?" Q asked, a sly grin plain in his voice. 

Bond bristled, though unsure if it was from the accusation itself or from being caught thinking just that. "I was worried about the report."

Q continued as if Bond had never spoken. "You know when someone ignores you it doesn't always mean the big bad took them hostage, most of the time they just don't want to talk to you." Q laughed at his own joke and Bond imagined him throwing his head back and even the agent cracked a smile though he didn't let his voice betray him. 

"Really? I've never had someone not want to talk to me. I've been reliably informed that I'm quite charming." 

Q laughed again and Bond was sure he was doing something right. He relaxed into the couch, his legs stretched out in front of him and his head pillowed against his hand, the phone smashed to his ear between them. "You should check your sources more thoroughly," Q said. 

"Oh I check them very thoroughly," Bond said with a deep rumble in his voice. 

"I'm sure you do," Q said in a tone that Bond couldn't quite place but was sure it was something between a reprimand and a flirt. 

Bond laughed and tried, in vain, to wipe the grin off his face. He thought about the fact that if Six ever found out about this conversation of the dozens of others they'd kill him without a second thought, and in one miraculous sweep they would be able to find Q and kill him too. Despite that Bond continued to grin, maybe he had lost it after all.

“Are you still going to send me the information?” Bond asked. 

“Maybe if I can ever get off the phone with this obnoxious British secret agent who won’t stop texting me.”

“I think you meant dashing secret agent.”

“I didn’t.”

There was a long silence on the line, punctuated only by the echo of Bond’s breathing and the sound of Q typing. “I’ll send you the report as soon as I can compile it all.”

“Thank you, Q,” Bond said, slowly.

“You can thank me by telling your employers to get off my back,” Q said.

“You know it doesn’t work that way,” Bond said.

“Worth a shot,” Q laughed. “Goodnight, Bond.”

“Goodnight, Q.” For a split and terrifying second Bond thought that he could get used to having someone say goodnight to him every night. He immediately hung up.

* * *

The next morning Bond was ordered to report to Mallory’s office, which he did with a slight spring in his step and a grin on his face. He ignored Moneypenny’s questioning gaze and went directly into Mallory’s office. 

Mallory looked up from the desk at him, clearly wondering why Bond came into his office without being announced first. “Hello, 007,” he said. “Please, sit.”

Bond sat and made himself as comfortable as possible, leaning back and one arm holding up his head. Mallory pulled out a thick manila folder from his drawer and slid it across the desk to land in front of Bond. “Rio.”

Bond took the folder and opened it. “I hear it’s nice this time of year,” Bond said. Inside the folder there was a picture of a middle-aged man with greying hair and dark skin speaking at a podium. “Is he to be my company?”

“I know you have a habit of befriending your targets but I think mass murderous radical leader might be stretch even for you,” Mallory answered flatly.

“They do tend to talk a lot,” Bond said, flipping through the rest of the file, skimming over some of the translated speeches, and connections to many of the organizations that Bond had been sent to undermine over the years. 

“The higher ups want this to be a statement, not an accident. Q will equip you with everything you’ll need.”

It took Bond longer than should have been necessary to figure out that Mallory was talking about Boothroyd. He stood up and tucked the file under his arm. “That’s all then?” 

“Yes. And Bond, try not to do anything stupid.”

He shot a grin at Mallory, said “Wouldn’t dream of it,” and stepped out of the office and back in front of Moneypenny’s desk. She looked up at him and smiled. “Bring me back a souvenir.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And do say hello to Q for me.”

“Always do.” 

She gave him a grin as he stepped into the lift. On the short ride down to Q-Branch he wondered if maybe he needed to try and be a little more subtle if Moneypenny and Mallory were going to call him out in the middle of Vauxhall. In Q-Branch Bond was equipped with a long distance rifle, a plane ticket, and a very strict itinerary by Boothroyd. 

In less than 48 hours Bond landed in Brazil, met with two local MI6 agents and members of the SNI, and assassinated the man in the middle of a speech, staging it with the other agencies as a civilian job and the rally was quickly overrun with screaming protesters. 

As he tried to unlock his hotel room door Bond thought back to the blur of days and wondered how much sleep he could actually get before his flight left for London 12 hours later. When the door opened and Bond saw the white box sitting in the middle of the bed he concluded that it would be very little. 

Slowly, Bond made his way to the bed and examined the box, checking for strings or any other obvious triggers. When he saw none, he decided that the easiest way to decide if it was safe was to open it and have a look inside. Where he had expected a bomb to be sitting was a charcoal grey coat. With just as much care as he had used to examine the box he looked over the coat and pulled it on. It hung down to his knees, heavy and warm and fitting in the way that only a tailored coat can.

He went into the bathroom to look at how it fit and buttoned it. The coat wasn’t a style he would usually pick for himself, something he was more likely to order online while drunk shopping with Moneypenny. Even so Bond found that he looked fantastic and couldn’t help the smirk that had taken up residence on his face. He put his hands in the pockets and felt a scrap of paper in the left one.

He pulled it out and unfolded the note.

_You might need this very soon. –Q_

Bond’s grin only spread.

He opened his phone and found in his email at the very top was an email from the address seriously@donotreply.com. There wasn't anything written in the subject line or the body of the email, just a very large PDF attached. Page after page of emails and invoices, flight plans and call transcripts. Like any good secret agent Bond turned around and started a hot bath for himself, typed out a thank you to Q, and then settled into the hot water to read through the report.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back??? That's like the third time I've written that in the notes of this fic. I don't even know what's going on anymore. I will not abandon this fic, though. It will be finished. It was my New Years Resolution. 
> 
> Anywho, this wan't beta read so as always please forgive any mistakes. 
> 
> P.S. I'm so sooooo sorry it's taken me this long to write this stupid chapter. 2 years might be a little long.


	8. Kiss and Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond causes trouble around MI6 and then causes some more in Marrakesh.

Q-Branch was as quiet as it ever was when Bond entered the branch. There were people shouting at each other from across the room to get their attention, the sound of typing, and of people on the phone to other departments. Bond walked down the center of the room, dodging people as they walked without looking up from their tablets. Boothroyd was sitting at a desk at the front of the room and Bond walked past R’s empty desk to get to him.

Boothroyd looked up from where he was tinkering with a smartphone that was in pieces. “007, how was your trip?”

“Productive,” Bond said. He placed the gun case and his earpiece on the table and picked up something that looked like a pair of earbuds.

“Good,” the quartermaster said, putting his hand out and giving Bond a bored look.

“What is it?” Bond said, untangling the mess and examining it. 

“A garrote, now give it back.” Bond tested the tension on it and as he did small blades came through the white plastic. 

"When do I get one?" Bond asked, watching the blades retract as the tension eased and handing it back to their creator. 

"The day after never. Did you need something else?" Boothroyd said. He tucked the headphones back into their case and continued to look up at Bond like he was a child who was trying to work up the nerve to ask for something. 

"No," Bond said, then turned and walked out of the branch. The door opened a second before he got there and R almost walked straight into him, reading her phone as she did. 

"007," she said, moving around him and not giving him another glance. 

As Bond walked through the halls of MI6 Bond felt, well not quite as light as air, but something closer to actual human size rather than the ton of bricks that he had felt pounding down on him. He made his way down to the agents’ gym and resisted the urge to smirk at everyone knowingly just to set them on edge. He changed in the locker room into a MI6 training shirt and a pair of sweatpants, exchanging his oxfords for tennis shoes that he had never worn (he was pretty sure that they were the product of drunk shopping with Moneypenny.)

An hour later he had abandoned one of his usual workouts for sparing with the slowly growing group of junior agents. He wondered in between dodging the jabs if they could sense one of their own getting their ass kicked or if they were all texting each other that old, decrepit 007 was taking challenges. The thought made him grin as he through his fourth opponent to the ground. He offered him a hand up. The man didn't accept, Bond’s grin intensified. 

"007,” R's voice cut through from the back of the crowd. Everyone went quiet but she still had to fight her way though the knot of people around the ring. 

"Hello, R," Bond said. He could feel his chest heaving a little, still not as in shape as a 00 should have been, but he was pleased when he heard his voice betray none of that. 

"A word?" 

"Of course." Bond went to the side of the ring where she was standing and squatted down until they were face to face, his chin resting on his arms that were propped up on one of the ropes. 

R's jaw worked as he eyes narrowed at him. "Privately."

“If you insist." He started to climb down and someone wolf whistled. 

Bond looked at R who was rolling her eyes so hard he almost asked her if it had hurt. 

"This is the future of the Double-0 program," she grumbled to herself. They were out of the gym and going down the main hall that would lead them to the rest of the maze of tunnels they were calling an office. "We're doomed as a county."

“You did make a bit of a scene,” Bond said just to get a rise from her. 

She leveled him with a flat look. 

He gave her a grin and continued to follow her, though he quickly realized that they were not headed back to any part of Q-Branch that he recognized. They stopped in front of a door that R had to put her hand on a scanner to unlock. For the split second between the locks audibly releasing and R opening the door Bond tensed and went through the more than extensive list of situations that ended with Bond either dead or on the run from the organization that he served his whole life. 

However it was just a warmly decorated office with couch on one wall and no windows, looking more like a home than an office. "Sit," she said, gesturing to the couch. 

He did as he was told and continued to look around her office while she opened one of the cupboards and pulled out two beers. She handed him one and sat down behind the desk, opening the beer on the edge of the desk. She must have noticed the question on his face while he looked around the room. "Server room is connected to this office. M, the real M, let me do what I like with the space since I was spending so much time here."

Bond opened the beer as she spoke and took a drink. "I have been reliably informed that Mallory is the real M," he said with a teasing grin. 

"Mallory can bite me."

Bond laughed still wondering why R had brought him to her office. It was quiet for a minute and R focused on peeling the label off the bottle, though she hadn’t drank any. "Are you trying to flirt with me?” he asked lightly, though there was a sliver of suspicion buried deep in the words. 

R looked at him for one cool moment. "Some of us are impervious to your charms, you know. I was more concerned with why this was on my desk." She pulled a small black flash drive from her pocket and held it up. "You told me you lost it in Korea three years ago."

"It seemed useful," Bond said with a shrug. She might have still been stalling him but he wanted to trust her so he did. 

"It was, which is why I wanted it back."

"Now you have it back."

She looked like she didn't want to smile but couldn't help the small crack of her lips. Then the smile fell and she was stuck with a frown. "I'm turning this in."

"That's why I gave it to you." 

"There are things in here about Costa Ri…" she started say only to have Bond cut her off. 

"I put them there."

For a second R stared at him in open shock, eyes wide and brows moving closer to each other as she did. "This could be viewed as treason."

"Everything I've done was for England."

"M and Q both seemed to care about you so I'm going to let you rethink that." 

The corner of Bond's mouth curled up in something between a grin and a sneer. "I don't need..."

"I am trying to give you a head start before Analysis gets a hold of this and Mallory sees this as a good reason to get rid of you."

Bond laughed and stood up, setting the half drank beer on her desk. "Oh, R, I never knew you cared." R just glared back at him so he turned away and left the office. Just before the door clicked shut Bond heard her mutter, "I hate men."

A few hours later Bond was still milling around Vauxhall, reasserting himself as the number one menace in all departments and filling out the paperwork from missions gone by. When he turned some of them into Tanner, four of them all attached to one email he got a quick response saying Tanner hated him. He had been in the shared 00 office when Moneypenny came in and all but dragged him to her desk. 

They made small talk and she told him all about her most recent break up, and he was almost sure she was making an attempt at normalcy until she said, “Well have you been talking to anyone interesting lately?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Do not.”

Mallory’s office door opened and the head of Analysis came out, making a beeline for the door while Tanner stood in the doorway. “What don’t you do?” Tanner asked.

“Kiss and tell,” Moneypenny said.

Tanner smirked and when he opened his mouth to make an undoubtedly smart-ass remark Mallory's voice came through the still open door. "007."

"That’s why you brought me up here," Bond said, shooting a look at Eve as he stood up.

Moneypenny grinned back at him and shrugged.

Bond closed the door to Mallory's office behind him and sat down. Mallory watched him, hands folded on the desk and a deep frown. Bond wondered if maybe R had already turned in the flashdrive. It didn't raise any alarm in him. 00s had a different set of rules and following up on a lead wasn't going to get him in half the trouble R seemed to think it would. 

"Marrakesh," Mallory said, pulling a manila folder out of a stack and handing it to Bond. "Criminal mastermind Jonathan Moreau's daughter is on vacation there. There are rumors that she is actually the brains of the operation and that she keeps an hard drive on her."

"Criminal mastermind?" 

Mallory cracked a smile and picked a card from his desk and handed it to Bond. "It's on his card."

Bond took the black matte card and in cursive white font was Jonathan Moreau, and under it: Criminal Mastermind. "It's different," Bond said. 

"It is, but you'll need it in order to get close to her. I’ll see you in a week."

* * *

The mission sounded simple but Bond was a little pleased when he left the office, if he allowed himself to be honest. It had been the first mission since his return that had actually been for a real Double-0. Every mission, from South Africa to Rio, had proven that Mallory did not trust him to do his job even as he chased Q around the world. 

The small satisfaction was quickly banished when two days into the Marrakesh mission everything went to shit. He was now running through a hotel being chased by henchpeople, trying to avoid what civilians he could as there was a party of international investors at the rooftop bar. R was in his ear, but all he could hear frantic typing, shouting in the background, and the occasional warning about what was around a corner. 

Bond came to the stairwell door only to have it not open. “R, a little help please.” 

“Working on it,” she said.

“Hurry.“

There was a grumbling sigh on the other side and some more typing as Bond listened to running footsteps getting closer. There was a click as the door opened and a split second later the building gave a violent shake. He braced himself in the door jam and turned just in time to see his pursuers fall to the ground, grasping at the smooth walls on their way down. He took off running down the stairs, not waiting to see if there would be an aftershock. The smell of burning hit his nose as Moneypenny asked, “What happened?”

R ignored her and her typing got more frantic and she yelled, “Someone get Q. Now! 007, can you still hear me?”

“Yes.” 

She sighed with something that might have been frustration or relief. “Good, but we’ve lost visual.”

In the background Moneypenny asked, “Was that us?” 

“I wish,” R grumbled. 

“That wasn’t us?” Bond asked. “Convenient timing.”

“I know,” Moneypenny said. “Makes me nervous. Do you still have the hard drive?”

Bond gave an affirmative. 

There was a click in his earpiece and then a “Bond, stop!” 

Without hesitation, Bond came to a screeching halt. “Q?”

“Who was that?” Moneypenny asked.

“Go back upstairs. Watch out for the civilians, they’ll be coming down,” Q said. 

“Or I could keep going,” Bond shot back.

“Do that and fall into the basement,” Q said. Bond looked over the rail and saw the next flight of stairs was completely gone. The agent rolled his eyes as he turned around and shot his pursuers and jumped over their bodies in his climb back up the stairs.

There was a faint shouting about someone being in the system in the background and Moneypenny shouting to trace it. He came out of the stairwell on the third floor and looked around but there wasn’t a trace of anyone left on the floor. “Where am I going?” Bond asked, but no one seemed to be listening to him.

“I can dodge you or I can save your agent and your mission, your choice,” Q said in a low and dangerous tone, that in any other circumstance Bond might have found it attractive, but right now he really just wanted someone to tell him if there were more holes in the floor. Instead there was only silence.

“Get the hard drive. We’ll deal with the hacker later,” Moneypenny said and before the sentence was even all the way out Q started talking. Less than five minutes later and Bond was outside moving down an alleyway towards his hotel. 

“The explosion was him wasn’t it?”

“I can still hear you,” Q answered. “And you’re welcome.”

“I didn’t say thank you,” Moneypenny said. 

“It wouldn’t kill you to try.”

“You have no way of knowing that.” Bond could hear the small grin in her voice.

Q laughed. “Goodnight, MI6, and do remember this when you send someone to kill me.”

“Don’t worry, we will,” Moneypenny said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any errors since this wasn't beta read. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Kudos & Comments = Love


	9. Fish Tacos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hours after Q helped Bond out of his Marrakesh debacle he arrives in San Juan.

Q stood leaning against the concrete wall looking out over the devastatingly blue water that stretched out in front of San Juan. It wasn’t his favorite view in the world; there was always going to be something about gloom of England that held his heart and the lights of a vibrant city in the dead of the night wasn’t something that ever lost its wonder. Even still he could appreciate bright blue waters for what they were and watching the waves break against rocks helped to settled his recently frayed nerves while he waited for JoJo. 

The two of them had been meeting up around the world every few months for the past four years, ever since they had both gotten over their small feud and become friends, a process that involved a city blackout, a mutual enemy, and a Double Dog Dare. 

They never stayed long enough to tire of each other and it was nice to have someone to talk to without judgment or an indictment hanging over their head. 

“So you _are_ alive,” JoJo’s voice came from behind him. 

He turned around to see her eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses and her hair was dark brown again, without a hint of the rainbow that she had the last time he had seen her, but that had been before Cape Town. 

“Just barely.” 

She laughed and pulled him into a hug. “Melodrama doesn't suit you.” They separated with the content smiles of two people who have missed good company for too long and have found it again. She turned to the water and leaned against the wall, her gaze still fixed on the horizon.

“Well, you are a terrible influence,” he said as he looked out at the water again. 

“Don’t you try to blame that on me,” she shot back, with a grin pulling at the corner of her mouth. 

“Whom should I blame it on then?” 

JoJo turned to him and grinned. “Maybe that spy you’re trying to seduce with hacking.”

Q shook his head and dodged the topic even as he smiled. “Let’s go back into town, I get the feeling I’m going to need a drink before too long.”

JoJo stood all the way up again and stretched her arms and back like a cat in the sun. “You say that ever time. You should just start drinking on the plane.” 

“I’m not you. I don’t mix my Xanax with alcohol.” They walked along the cobblestone pavers into the city looking just the pair of tourists with dark sunglasses and Q’s skin flushing pink in the telltale beginnings of a burn. 

“First, I don’t do that. Second, at least my source has an actual prescription pad.” 

“You’re seeing a real doctor?”

“Real is a relative term…”

“It’s not.”

“I think she just keeps track of her customers, but it’s not like she has my real name so what does it matter what she scribbles in her book?”

Q let out a snorted laugh. “Do you even know what your real name is anymore?”

“I think it started with an ‘L’.” JoJo laughed and Q laughed with her. 

They found themselves in a bar not far from the square where they had met and found a booth in the very back that Q sat in while JoJo got the drinks. 

“I know you burn easily but come on, Q, some of us like the sun,” she said as she slid his beer over to him. 

“And I'm sure we'll see more than enough of it later.” 

JoJo hummed at him and took a drink her eyes never leaving his face. She was trying to read him and knew he was up to something. 

“Humor me.”

“Isn't that the basis of our friendship?” A second after she said it a grin spread across her face like she hadn't realized how funny that was going to be until she heard it out loud. 

He took another drink and tried to talk himself out of what he was going to say next, though it had little effect because the next thing he knew he was putting his beer down, drawing patterns in the condensation on the glass and asking “What do you know about Pendel?”

The humor drained out of her face and there was coldness to her eyes that Q had hoped he would never be on the receiving end of. “I know we don't fuck with them.” 

“I know you don't like them,” Q started but was cut off and his hand grabbed with crushing force. 

“This is not a personality issue. Do not work with them, I will give you money if you need it that bad.” 

Q’s phone vibrated in his pocket and with more than a little effort pulled his hand away from JoJo to check it. The message said that Bond was talking about him but he ignored the message and put his phone facedown on the table. 

“That them?”

“No. That’s… I can explain that later,” Q said, leaning back in the booth. 

JoJo continued to stare at him, her jaw set but the coldness was gone from her eyes and had been replaced by anger and more fear than Q had seen from her before, he almost wished for the ice to return. 

“It's not a job _for_ them, Jo.”

There was a careful stillness that came over JoJo’s whole body, the fear and anger frozen on her face. Slowly, she turned and checked over her shoulder, for what, Q didn't know. As far as he knew she had never met anyone who worked for Pendel in person and wouldn't have been able to identify someone who might have been interested in their conversation. She turned back to him and leaned across the table and hissed at him “You better not be saying what I think you are.”

“I get the feeling I am.” Q had to force himself not to fidget with his glass or reach for his phone when it vibrated again. JoJo had been dodging them for almost as long as Q had known her and he hadn't expected this conversation to go over well, but he had expected her to embrace the idea of taking them down. 

“These are bad people. You won't survive this and if you do you'll wish they had killed you.”

Q leaned forward and met JoJo stare for stare. “Then why let them keep operating?”

“Is this about your secret agent friend?” she asked but continued without giving him a chance to respond. “We can get you laid, that's not a problem.” She slid out of the booth and grabbed his hand, pulling him out of the booth while his hand shot out for his phone.

Q’s sigh and exasperation lasted him three hours until they had changed and arrived in a club with music blaring until he couldn’t think through the noise. For that Q could manage to be grateful to his friend. For the weeks that had followed his speedy evacuation of South Africa Q hadn't found a spare second to turn off his brain. Staying one step ahead of MI6 would be hard enough if he hadn't taken to poking at Bond. And then there was Costa Rica. And Morocco. And Pendel. And Bond’s face.

* * *

Bright morning sunlight streamed through the crack in the curtain and directly onto Q’s face slowly waking him and making the first thought that ran through his mind how two geniuses managed not to close the curtains correctly. When he opened his eyes he realized that the two geniuses hadn't even tried to close the curtains. 

Q rolled over trying to ignore the sunlight that made him consider just dying instead of staying awake. His eyes landed on how JoJo had decided to crash in his room, and burst of laughter broke out when he saw her; one leg on the back of the couch, her back bent over the arm and arms crossed across her chest like she had passed out in the middle of an argument. 

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and grabbed one of the pillows chucking it the short distance at JoJo. She jerked awake and then glared at Q. “The fuck was that for?” she croaked out. 

“If I have to be awake because you didn't close the blinds so do you,” Q shot back as she leaned over and started rummaging through a bag to find her water. 

“You are an evil man.” She tossed the water and a small plastic bottle of acetaminophen, one of which fell short and the other hit Q square in the chest. 

“That's why we're friends.” 

She gave him a tight smile that told him she thought he was just hilarious. “You think breakfast is ready somewhere?”

Q looked at the small digital clock on the nightstand and said “It is almost eleven.”

After both of them had minimized the smudging of their make up from the night before and tamed their hair to some version of presentable they left to go find themselves something to soak up the alcohol and nausea. They found themselves sitting in the sun on the patio of a restaurant and waiting for their Bloody Marys and Q almost felt bad for ruining the peace between them when he opened his mouth even though JoJo beat him too it.

“Don't even start.” Her head was still bent toward her menu but he could see her eyes watching him from behind her glasses. When he caught her eye she quickly looked back at the menu.

“Should I have waited for your drink to come?”

“You should drop this and forget that you ever heard of them.” She didn't look back up at him and had decided to read every word of the menu. 

“JoJo,” he started but was cut off by the waitress coming over with their drinks and trying to take their order until JoJo asked for more time to choose. When the waitress was well out of earshot and Q was sure that no one else on the patio was paying attention he started again. “Be reasonable.”

“I'm trying to but fish tacos just sound so good. And it's almost lunch time since we woke up so late.” She continued to stare at the menu and fidget with the edges. 

“Then get fish tacos and tell me what you're afraid of."

She was quiet for a while then slowly closed the menu. "You're right. I'm getting the tacos."

Q waited for her to continue but before too long they both realized they were locked in a staring contest. Neither of them knew how long they stayed like that but when the waitress came back to ask them if they were ready to order she had a look on her face that told them that it had been minutes and not seconds of staring at one another. They ordered and handed back their menus, taking JoJo’s method of hiding away.

"Fine," JoJo said as the waitress walked away. Q couldn't understand what her change in heart had been but at that moment Q was willing to ignore it in order to get the information he wanted. "Three years ago I took a job gathering some intel for group that was competition for them. I knew they were bad but I was careful, no signatures, no marks, no claim. In and out, no big.

"Then a paycheck was delayed and I got antsy. And then there was a request from the people I had taken the job for. A couple of their people had been killed and they wanted to know what had happened and they doubled my pay. Within a month every one of the people within the company that had hired me was dead.

"Q, they took down an international crime ring. People I knew to be powerful and ruthless, the kind of people who were not to be denied were all dead within the three months of me taking that job. I burnt my old life. You'll remember that was about they time the name Izzy disappeared and JoJo showed up. Q, I am begging you to leave this alone. People will die, you will die.”

Q listened to her monologue quietly while she leaned forward an pleaded with him to let well enough alone. It was a sad speech and he didn't doubt a word of it from the small shake of her voice when she said they were all dead to fact that she hadn't noticed anything was wrong until her pay ha been late. “How do they do it?” 

“Do you even listen when I speak?”

Instead of answering he shot her a look that was disinterested in the distraction she was trying to evoke. 

“I hate you and I hate your secret agent boyfriend,” she said moments before her plate hit the table. 

Fish tacos and Mallorca delivered and two more Bloody Marys on the way they both dug into their food and for a few minutes they were able to eat in peace and Q didn't even put up a fight when JoJo continued. “If this keeps up I'm going to have to go full Dad Friend. We don't need him influencing you to get those nasty moral things.”

“You're going to give a guy I'm not dating the shovel talk?”

“He's old, I can take him.”

“He's not that much older than us.”

“Then he’s wrinkling prematurely?”

“Very prematurely,” Q said and couldn't help his own giggle into his drink.

For a while they were both able to let the company slip from their minds and talk about what the last three months had been. JoJo had been contracting for the US government for the last few months and was having a good time of making a show of having few loyalties to all the actual government employees. 

Two more Bloody Marys and they left behind the restaurant to wander through the streets and making a round about way to JoJo’s hotel, which had their rental car for their trip to Laguna Grande. Q’s phone vibrated a few times in his pocket and when he checked it was Bond. 

“I'll talk to him later,” Q said to JoJo when she gave him a sidelong look. 

“Married,” she mumbled and Q pretended not to hear. 

When they did get back to the hotel JoJo decided that she couldn't wear borrowed clothes for the rest of the day and the two went upstairs for her to change before they had to start their drive. He sat himself on her bed while she went into the bathroom and pulled out a pair of earbuds with his phone. 

He opened the app that he had put on his phone that linked his phone to Bond’s and he started to listen in. The words were mumbled slightly, Bond either hadn't been talking to Q or had given up because the distinct grind of fabric moving across the microphone made Q’s nose crinkle. There were two voices talking, one was obviously Bond and as Q messed with the volumes he was able to make out the other as Gareth Mallory. 

Somewhere else in Q’s mind he was aware that JoJo had opened the door and was watching him but that bit wasn’t where he was. He was in London in an office he had never seen in color and with the man whose life he had come to care about despite himself. 

JoJo sat down on the bed with a flop and Q jumped, almost loosing a grip on his phone. “How’s your secret agent boyfriend?” she asked, a laugh in her voice. 

“He's not a secret agent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive any typos and/or errors. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Kudos = Love 
> 
> Comments = More Love


	10. I Don't See The Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond returns from Marrakech.

Bond returned from Marrakech mostly unscathed. There had been a twist of his ankle that made it easier to limp through Heathrow than not and his palm had a burn that throbbed and made it hard to move his left fingers, but all things considered Bond was happy to be alive. With his bag slung over one shoulder he made his way through the airport, planning the best route through MI6 to drop off his equipment in Q-Branch and debrief with Mallory without anyone noticing his injuries. All he wanted was to go home, rest, and maybe try to get ahold of Q. Medical did not fit into that plan. 

He hadn’t heard from the hacker since he had signed off of the MI6 line after saving his life despite asking after him few times. A part of Bond wondered what exactly what it was he wanted to say to Q. Maybe “don't do it again.” Maybe “you're not so bad.” Maybe “thank you.” Whatever it was Bond was a man that went with his gut and without the call to action there was only time to think. And only thinking was driving him more than a little mad.

He turned a corner on his way to the parking garage where MI6 kept a few cars for returning agents and his eyes swept over the lines and crowds of people as he continued to walk. His eyes caught at one of the counters where R was presenting her passport to the airline agent. Her hair had been chopped short and her clothes looked more casual than Bond had ever seen her, yet there was no mistaking her. He hadn't known of any vacation planned, but that despite their recent camaraderie R and Bond had never been nor ever would be the closest of friends. He continued on his way without ever breaking his stride, the other Q would tell him when he returned the equipment. Without another thought about it he kept on his path and went back to MI6. 

When he arrived in Q-Branch it was to a very dower feeling in the air and more than a few glares being thrown at him. At the front of the control room Old-Man-Q was sitting bent over and glaring at a computer screen. Bond stepped in front of the desk and waited or him to look up, only for Q to look up, see it was Bond, glare, and look back down at the screen. 

Bond pulled the gun case and earwig out of his bag and set it down with the flash drive and continued to wait. Q stopped what he was doing only long enough to scoop all three into his hands and place them in a drawer, never speaking a word to the agent. 

“Nice to see you too, Q,” Bond finally said.

He looked up to consider Bond for a moment and then said, “M wants to see you” and went back to work.

Bond nodded, turned on his heal and headed out of the branch. As he did he noticed that not a single person, despite their earlier glares, would meet his gaze yet every on of them was watching him. 

Tension started its steady tightening up his spine as he walked through the halls of MI6. He ignored the pain of his ankle and forced himself to stride forward without a hint of a limp. The blister on his palm scratched painfully against the inside of his pocket but the sign of any reaction, physical or emotional, drained from his face. He carved everything out leaving him the empty shell that people feared him to be; predator’s eyes finding anyone at random and making them drop their gaze.

Upstairs Moneypenny wasn't impressed. “At least try to look like you’re listening.”

“Why does Mallory want to see me?” he asked, siting down on the edge of her desk. 

Moneypenny looked up and frowned. “You just returned from a mission. You’re a Double-0, you report directly to M. Did you hit your head?”

“Then why did Q get so much satisfaction out of sending me up here?”

Eve sighed. “R hasn’t returned to work since your mission in Marrakech.” 

Bond thought back to R handing over her passport at the airport. “It’s not my job to stop people from hacking into our system.”

Moneypenny leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “The flash drive that appeared on M’s desk after your mission had more to do with it.”

“It’s been two days, maybe she just has a cold,” Bond said, a smiling tugging at the corner of his lips.

Moneypenny gave him an unimpressed look and shook her head. Her computer dinged and she sat forward to read the screen. “Drinks with Tanner and I tonight? We're both almost done.” 

“Fine.”

“Good. M will see you now,” she said nodding to the door and starting to type.

Bond stood up and straightened his suit unnecessarily. His conversation with Moneypenny had done little to loosen the apprehension that seemed to wrap itself around his spine and squeeze. He knew the feeling well, it was the feeling that had steered him away from danger more times than he knew. It was the reason he was alive. He hated Mallory for making him ignore it.

Inside the office Mallory was waiting; he watched Bond open the door and sit without saying a word and continued the silent assessment for a few beats longer. “I’m not even sure where to begin,” Mallory said, sounding legitimately at a loss. “You have obviously had repeated contact with the hacker who goes by Q. You must have in order to recognize his voice over an earpiece in the middle of a mission that was quickly going to shite. And then he saved your life, which seems odd considering you're the agent in charge of bringing him in. And then there’s this.” Mallory pulled the black flash drive out of his inside breast pocket and held it up for Bond to see. 

“I don't see the problem here,” Bond said, tempering the steel in his voice for a second longer, biding his time. 

“I didn't think you would,” Mallory said with a sigh. 

“I was gathering intel, that is my job isn't it?” 

“Gather and bring back. You're not some great one man show,” Mallory said, his jaw clenched and twitching. 

“You should gave more faith in your agents,” Bond shot back. 

“It’s impossible for you to have all the information. That's why we have other branches.”

“Let's be honest, you just want to throw away the Double-0 program and you're looking for any excuse no matter how flimsy.”

“What I want is a Double-0 who understands that they aren't the be-all end-all for MI6. Did you think just because you hadn't heard of Pendel that we didn't know about them?”

Bond schooled his features and didn't let the surprise register on his face, but his mind was running through all the reasons he hadn't been able to find anything on them when he had looked. 

“There are some things Moneypenny doesn't have access to,” Mallory said and Bond was almost impressed that the smugness wasn't dropping from his tone. “And R’s a better liar than you gave her credit for. It wasn’t her place to tell you about Pendel.”

“Is that why she’s gone?”

“It's not about Pendel. She's running because she helped you become some poorly informed international vigilante instead of reporting it.”

“And you're going to burn our best IT agent over it?” 

“No, she can one back if she wants. But there's no ‘our’.” He opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a pocket folder and handed it to Bond. “This is the information for your pension and retirement.”

Mallory continued talking but it all faded away as Bond tried not to crumple the folder in his hand when his whole body went tense. The world dropped out from under him and he had felt more at ease when base-jumping away from an explosion than in that moment. His stomach was in his throat and he thought he might be sick at the very thought of retirement. “You're a fool.”

Mallory’s jaw clenched and his lips pressed into a thin line until he took a longsuffering breath and sighed. “I'm not the one clinging to my youth and trying to out smart a genius by myself. Let it be over, Bond. You were a good agent and you protected your country the best you could but the is a young man’s game. Let them have it.”

Bond decided to switch tactics. “They don't know the things we do. They're children.”

“Were you a child seven years ago when you became a Double-0?”

“I certainly made more mistakes than I should have.”

“Then what about the mistakes you make now?” Mallory said, his even temper coming close to breaking. “Marrakech, Cape Town, Prague, Tokyo, and your bloody excursion to Costa Rica. And that's just since I became Director. Wake up, Bond. It’s over; you should have stayed dead.”

“Then who would have stopped Silva?”

“YOU LOST THAT FIGHT!” Mallory yelled slamming his hand on the desk.

For too long Bond considered reaching across the desk and killing Mallory. The shock that would register on the pompous man as he clawed at Bonds grip and his skin turned blue filled Bond’s mind. Instead the arm of the chair creaked under his grip. 

“If you have any questions Mohammed in HR will be continuing his management of your personnel file. On behalf of MI6 and the United Kingdom I thank you for your service.”

Bond heard the dismissal in M’s voice but he stayed in the chair, staring back at Mallory but the director never broke eye contact and Bond was forced to stand and leave the room knowing that he had lost even that. 

Moneypenny looked up when the door opened, concern covering her face but before she could get a word out Bond said, “I’ll meet you at the pub,” and continued out the door and out of MI6. 

He had never handled his emotions well but the storm that was brewing in his chest was rivaling the emptiness he had felt when the life had faded from M’s eyes. Part of him wanted to scream and yell and throw things until the urge to destroy everything in his sight had subsided. Another part craved to go back and beg for one more shot, any chase to prove himself or die trying. Yet another part, small and ignored as it might have been, wanted to cry. For the past seven years as a Double-0, the 5 with MI6 before that, and the 15 years with the Navy before that Bond had been an extension of a long and deadly arm. He had belonged - heart and soul - to serving the needs of his country and now they didn't want him. The world felt too small by half and yet his own life felt too large to reach out and touch anything real. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket as he turned down the street where the pub was and all the work to empty his mind was thrown out the window when he thought immediately of Q. Fresh anger flooded through his body and wasn't tampered by the fact that the text was from Moneypenny saying that Tanner and her had taken a car and were at the pub ordering a martini for him. 

After days of spinning his wheels Bond’s gut finally knew what to say to Q. He held up the phone to his ear and when he spoke his voice was low and dangerous with the promise of a lost man. “Q, I know you're listening. It seems I underestimated you. You were clever to try and separate me from Six, to make them question me. You handed me a distraction and I let you, but don’t worry. I don’t make the same mistake twice and I’m coming for you. Six or not I'm going to kill you.”

Bond half expected a taunt to appear in text format when he lowered his phone but nothing appeared so he went into the pub and found Moneypenny and Tanner sitting in the back corner booth. He slid into the seat next to Tanner where he could see the front door and Moneypenny would watch the back. 

“So how bad was it?” Moneypenny asked as Bond took a long drink of his martini. 

“You don’t know?”

“Someone wouldn't tell me,” she said, shooting a glare at Tanner. 

“If M wants to do this he can answer for it himself,” Tanner grumbled before taking a long drink of his beer. 

“I've been retired,” Bond said the words almost catching in his throat. He washed down the bitter taste in his mouth with another drink. 

For a long second Moneypenny sat in a state of shock. “What?”

“It's a good thing I never got around to unpacking,” Bond said, his sardonic humor coming out to shine. “My flat is for Double-0s only.”

“You can't be serious,” she said then looked to Tanner. “Is M really doing this?”

Tanner nodded. “He says there are only so many second chances.”

“And what do you say?” Moneypenny asked. 

“Honestly, I want you to retire, James. I don't want your death in the field to hang over my head for the rest of my life. But I also think this Q thing he's blaming it on is a bunch of shite.”

Bond stayed silent but cocked his brow at his friend.

“He's been trying to get you to take a desk job for months. There was the forced psych leave. Cape Town should have been two junior agents, Double-0s don't shoot to wound and that's what we needed there. Then he let you run around on a little vendetta without actually giving you the resources to find Q. If Six had actually cared about finding Q there would have been a whole task force in Q-Branch. He did it all so you would get sick of fighting the red tape but still want to serve.”

“You think he's that clever?” Bond asked after Tanner finished his explanation. 

“I helped set it up,” Moneypenny chimed in. “There were more than a few requests for more resources for the Q thing. When actual Q started ‘loosing’ the requests, R started to bring them to me. Then I lost them.”

“And then I lost them. Six needs your mind, not your body.”

As they spoke something cold spread through Bond. “Now you have neither,” he said then stood up to leave. 

“James,” Tanner said and Bond stopped. “I need your phone.” In his hand there was a new phone for the old agent. 

Bond stared at Tanner for a second, considering just walking out but thought better of it and took the offered phone. He took his own phone out of his pocket and dropped it in Tanner’s beer with a splash and turned on his heel before either Moneypenny or Tanner could respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, yet again please forgive all errors, this chapter also wasn't beta read.
> 
> Kudos= Love  
> Comments = More Love


	11. Too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He stood up as Moneypenny came to a stop in front of him. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said, the smile slipping into her voice and he knew exactly what she had looked like telling him they were still sending people to kill him

The plane jolted and the momentum pushed Q forward in his seat and he alternated between trying not to be sick on the seat in front of him and remembering to breath. Vaguely he wondered if his anxiety regarding flying had gotten worse since he as started using the pills that usually made him all but comatose. In some cosmic answer to his question the voice on the speaker welcomed the passengers to London and his heart jumped into his throat. The landing wasn’t the problem; being on British soil for the first time in 14 years was 

He shuffled off the plane and through customs where he handed over his passport and held his breath as it scanned. “Welcome back, Mr. Cloutier,” the customs agent said, handing back the little red booklet. 

Q tried not to look over his shoulder for security guards and remember to breath as he shuffled through the airport. No one knew who he really was. No one had linked Q to Kieran Quinn Cloutier and there was no reason why they would. He placed his hand on his computer bag and put his other hand deep in his pocket, running his fingers over the external hard drive there. A few deep breaths on an escalator and he could almost think clearly again. 

He got onto the Underground and tried to keep up his courage. When he had left San Juan it had seemed like the only reasonable option was to go to London, now he'd had two flights and twelve hours to think about how stupid he was being. 

After Tanner had taken Bond’s phone Q had torn the earbud from his ear and bit at his lip until he could taste metal. JoJo had sworn up and down that it wasn't his fault and Q insisted that he wasn't upset until she pretended to believe him. He tried to enjoy the bioluminescence in the bay but spent he entire time fighting the urge to pull out his phone and grant himself access to Bond’s security system just to see if he was home. It had been edging towards dawn when they finally returned to the hotel JoJo had booked in Laguna Grande for the night. When they laid down for bed JoJo had looked at Q and punched him lightly in the arm. “Don't do anything stupid.”

“While I'm sleeping?”

JoJo stayed silent and rolled over. 

Q waited as long as his nerves allowed before getting out of the bed, changing in the dark, and took the keys. He didn't know if JoJo had been awake and he suspected he would never find out. The only thing he had heard from her since then was a single word during his layover in Newark. **Stupid. -JJ**

He should have listened to her. _Too late now._

At Vauxhall Q got off the midmorning train and went up to the street. The sound of the cars and buses, the accents in passing chatter, and the whistling of wind passing through buildings struck a melody that with the smell of rain in the air struck something deep him. If standing on the corner of a street that Q had likely never crossed brought himself so close to tears he wondered what Clifton would do to him. One train ride and he could find out. 

_Too late now._

Q crossed the street and went to the front entrance of glass, stone, and cameras. Instinctively he turned his face away from the cameras, which resulted, with his head bent to the floor. Then he remembered why he was there and adjusted the shoulder strap on his laptop bag and held his head up high as he approached the agent sitting behind the front desk. She smiled at him tightly. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes, with M,” he said and was proud when his voice didn't crack. She gave him a hard look that lasted until he felt the urge to fidget. “It should be under Q.”

She nodded and started typing with a frown that only got deeper. “Are you quite sure your appointment is for today?” 

“Yes. It was last minute so it might not have found its way to your schedule. Miss Moneypenny can confirm.” This time Q’s voice waivered. 

_Too late now._

The woman picked up a phone and started talking to someone on the other end. Something itched under his skin and Q realized he hated not knowing every part of the conversation. Eventually she hung up and said that someone would be out to escort him in just a moment. He sat himself down in one of the armchairs next to a wall an in the direct line of sight of a camera. 

He forced himself not to pick at his nails under the gaze of the lens and actually managed to smile at he camera. It wasn't long before Moneypenny came striding out from behind a door and walked around the metal detector. She had a soft smile on her lips like she was afraid that she might smile too widely if she let it slip any farther. 

He stood up as she came to a stop in front of him. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said, the smile slipping into her voice and he knew exactly what she had looked like telling him they were still sending people to kill him. 

“I’m sure it is,” he said, wondering if she saw the smile he'd had when he had told her to remember that he had saved Bond’s life. By the pull at the corner of her lips she did. 

“M is in a meeting right now so you'll have to settle for me,” she said and motioned for him to walk forward towards the door she had come through. He stepped forward and she walked half a step behind him, braced to catch him if he changed his mind and tried to run. 

_Too late now_

He handed his bag to the security guard who looked through it and then handed it to Moneypenny who also took Q’s coat. She slung the bag over her own shoulder and folded the coat over her arm as she led him through the door. 

On the other side two more agents stood waiting. One was a in a finely tailored suit, tall and blonde with a dangerously pleased glint to his eye. He was one of Bond’s friends, the only one outside of Moneypenny and Tanner, (and Q when it was the dead of night and he didn’t care enough to knock sense back into himself). The other man was shorter and in a comfortable looking sweater, but his eyes were just as sharp and was reading Q as soon as they came through the door, a serious set to his jaw. Moneypenny handed the bag and coat to the smaller of the two men. “See what you can get from these. There's an external hard drive in his pocket,” she said.

He nodded and disappeared down a side hallway that Q hadn't noticed. Alec, Q remembered his name with a snap of clarity, grabbed Q’s shoulder and forcibly steered him around and farther down the hall. Moneypenny followed for a few steps and then stepped around Alec and Q, shooting the blonde a glare that seemed to be made mostly of exasperation. 

Alec and Q followed behind her for a long time turning corners at seemingly random and walking down steps until the drywall turned into brick and the air took a damp chill. No one spoke as they went, Alec's fingers dug into his shoulder until he was sure there would be a cluster of bruises making a perfect mimic of Alec's grip. Moneypenny’s heals clicked against the stone making a beat line to Q’s imprisonment. He hadn't wanted to break the silence of his company for a long time and he wasn't sure he had ever felt the urge as violently as he did walking through MI6. They never saw another person in all of their turns and Q wished he had taken the time to memorize at least he vaguest blueprints of the tunnels that MI6 had taken over post-Silva so he could have even the vaguest idea of where he was. 

Moneypenny stopped in front of a steel door, typed in a password, and scanned her handprint. He could hear the lock disengage and then the door slid open into a huge room with a hexagonal glass cell in the middle. He let himself take a deep breath as he looked at his new home. 

The cell was on a raised platform with two steps up. In the center there was a metal stool and beyond that it was empty. The thought crossed his mind that he would be able to tell if they ever intended for him to ever see the light of day depending on how long they left him in that cell. 

_Too late now._

The door on the glass cage slid open and Alec released him. Q had to resist the urge to reach for his shoulder, he didn’t know why but admitting that Alec’s grip had been anything but a gentle reminder of which direction to turn felt a lot like losing. 

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Moneypenny said, motioning to the cell. 

“How kind,” he said barely squeaking the words out in an intelligible fashion. The 14 steps to the cell seemed to last forever and a heartbeat all at once. His feet seemed heavy and his legs couldn’t remember how to walk through the fear that was making ever one of his muscles stiff. 

_Too late now._

He sat down on the edge of what was now his bed and looked at Moneypenny and Alec who stared back at him but left the door open. 

“I'm glad you decided against false pretense and just went straight for the cell,” Q said.

“We wouldn't want to insult your intelligence like that,” Alec said. The dangerous look in his eye had translated to a stone cold and razor sharp tone. 

Q tried to give a humorous smile but was sure it came out sickly. 

“Are you going to actually make us wait for M or are you going to tell us why you're here?” Alec asked. He prowled closer to the cell while Moneypenny watched, her eyes sharp but unconcerned. As for Q he wished they had closed the glass. 

“I’m much more inclined to answer M or Tanner or Moneypenny. Just not you, if it's all the same.” He didn't step back and was far too proud of that. He knew he tended overestimate his ability to look death in the face and laugh but now that he stared at Alec he understood that it wouldn’t have mattered how prepared Q had come to die. Alec didn't want Q dead, not like James did. Alec wanted his pain. 

Behind the green eyes Alec saw Q’s face covered in sweat and tears, contorted in suffering. Between Q’s breaths Alec heard echoing screams and begging. Past the damp smell of the tunnels Alec smelt Q’s blood and the smell of the smaller man making a mess of himself after a few days of being shown nothing but questions and pain. Q saw all of this written on the agent’s face, but also a hunger for it that he hoped he never had to satisfy. Some deeper part of him also hoped that Bond had never felt that hunger, but there wasn't time to think of that now. 

Then Alec smiled in a way that would have been disarming had the agent not just shown Q the face before, somehow the smile managed to make it worse. “It's not all the same. Why are you here, Q?”

Q stayed quiet for a long time. He realized it had been too long when Moneypenny’s eyes flickered away from Q and to Alec. “Because I want to be,” he finally answered. 

“Please don't lie to me, Q. It hurts my feelings.” Alec turned his back to him and Q had the ridiculous hope that he might just leave. Instead he took of his suit jacket and hung it up on a hook that was covered in shadows. He turned back around, removing his cufflinks and rolling up his sleeves. He strode towards Q again with his hands in his trouser pockets. The hacker wished that he didn't know what was coming next, then maybe he could have enjoyed the sight. 

“I walked in here of my own free will,” Q said. “It’s not like you were hot on my trail.”

“You’ve been running from us for months and you weren’t exactly on our side before that. Are we supposed to believe you just had a change in heart?” Alec asked. He had slowly been making his way closer to the cell and was now only about two steps away from where Q stood in the threshold of the cell.

“Pendel needs to be stopped,” Q started to say but was cut off when Alec’s arm shot forward and his hand closed around Q’s neck. Moneypenny took a step forward, her arms unfolding but stopped short when nothing more happened. The grip wasn’t tight enough to hurt and Q could still breath easily, but it definitely shut him up. 

“Stop lying to me. We both know you don’t have a morally right bone in your body, so which is it? Are you here to finish what you were doing in South Africa or are you just this much of a Silva fanboy?” Alec said, the grip tightening for a spit second. 

Moneypenny chimed in from across the room. “Or is it about Bond?” 

Q had managed to keep his cool for most of the conversation. His thought that his face had stayed mostly blank through the interrogation, including the psychical bit, but he knew he was given away as soon Moneypenny spoke. He could feel his face heating up and he swallowed without thinking that Alec would be able to feel it. 

This time when Alec smiled he didn’t even try to appear as anything less than predatory. He released Q and took a step backwards, turning to Moneypenny. “And you worried he had lost his touch. A pretty little trap for a pretty little hacker.”

“Bond sets that trap without even knowing it,” Moneypenny said. She typed on her phone and the glass door slid shut, the lock audibly engaging. “We’ll be back, Q. It was lovely to meet you.” There was a satisfied smile on her lips.

Both agents were gone and Q was alone before he could come up with something sufficiently clever to shoot back at them.

* * *

Q sat on the floor of his cell, his head tilted back against the glass trying to figure out what time it might be. He was sure it had been hours but he had yet to see anyone since Alec and Moneypenny had left and the lights never changed and his ears buzzed with the strain of trying to hear anything other than his own breathing.

The metal door slid open and Q jumped to his feet. This time it was Tanner with two guards with him. He didn’t say anything as he unlocked the door and the guards came forward and stood waiting on either side of the door. When Q didn’t move out of the cell and just stared at him the Chief of Staff finally said, “We’re moving you to a different cell. You can walk or we can knock you out.”

Q stepped forward into the grip of the two guards who secured his arms behind his back with handcuffs and gripped each of his arms to keep him walking. Tanner led them out of the room and down another series of halls. This time they did see people through the halls. Some of them stared, some of them purposefully didn’t look, and most of them looked at Q then looked at Tanner and realized they didn’t care.

He strained to look through one of the glass walls into an office and saw the time. It was just after six, he had been in his cell for five hours, no wonder he was hungry. He wondered absently if they would feed him anytime soon.

Tanner came to a stop and watched his phone for a few beats before they turned a corner. Q was almost thankful for the guards who kept him on his feet when his eyes landed on what was around the corner. 

Bond was looking past Moneypenny’s shoulder and right at Q.

Q’s eyes went wide and he forgot how to breath, though his mouth hung open. Again he was thankful to his keepers who pushed him around yet another corner, into an elevator, and out of Bond’s line of sight. He felt the overwhelming urge to cry but bit it back. He had never seen anyone hate him so much.

_Too late now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any errors, this chapter wasn't beta read. 
> 
> Kudos = Love  
> Comments = More Love (even though I'm the actual worst at responding)


	12. Good Enough Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond and Q finally meet face to face.

It started out with a call from Moneypenny and Bond ignoring it. Then he got a text from Mohammad not ten minutes later. _You need to come in and finish your paperwork. Please be sober._ Bond considered ignoring that too but a part of him wanted to know what it was that Moneypenny wanted so badly that she was willing to rope in the other departments.

After continuing to lounge on the couch for the last twenty minutes of the movie he was watching Bond forced himself to get up. He put on his second favorite suit, shaved for the first time in days and left his half packed flat for the office. In the front entrance of the building Bond waved to Lydia, a field agent that had been posted at the front desk after Silva, and continued to make his way around the metal detector when he was stopped by Franklin, the security guard.

“Sorry, Bond. No pass, no gun.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“No. You might want to check with Miss Moneypenny on that. She called to remind us not ten minutes ago.”

“Of course she did,” Bond grumbled, removing his gun from the holster and handing it to Franklin.

“At least she’s not making you get an escort.” He smiled at Bond and put the gun in a lockbox. “It’ll be waiting for you,” he assured Bond. The former agent just nodded sharply and went through to the door and into the offices. 

He made his way through half of MI6 and tried to ignore the scratching at his nerves. There was something not quite right and the more he tried to brush it off the deeper the feeling took root. When he finally did make it to the HR offices Mohammad actually did have things for him to sign, including Bond’s license for a handgun. It was almost enough for Bond to relax and think that Moneypenny wasn’t up to anything extra devious right up to the moment that Eve walked past the office and lingered for half a beat before continuing on her way. He watched her go as he signed his name to another piece of paper and the bitter feeling twisted his gut. 

A few strategically picked minutes of small talk later Bond started his way out of the HR office to be cornered by Moneypenny who stopped him just inside the glass doors in front of the large hallway. 

“Are you done avoiding Tanner and I like a child?” she asked.

“I’m not avoiding you,” Bond argued. 

“Really? Is that why you’re ignoring our calls?” 

“I’m not avoiding Tanner’s.”

“Only because he hasn’t tried.”

“Then I’m not avoiding him,” Bond said and made a move to shoulder past her only to be stopped by her stepping in front of him. For a second Bond stopped and just stared at her and tried to think of what she could want. None of what she was doing added up until Tanner turned a corner being followed by three men and it all clicked. 

With a mess of black curls, a sweater that was rumbled beyond reason, a dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, a tie loose around a thin neck, and a pair of owlish eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses staring back at him, Bond’s world stopped. His hand reached for his gun but came back with nothing but air as Q turned the corner and was out of reach.

Bond turned and stared at Moneypenny, silently demanding an answer to all his questions; ones he couldn’t quite manage to put into words yet. “Let me walk you out,” she said instead. 

He nodded and the two of the made their way through MI6, avoiding all the places they knew would be crowded. “I thought you should know we got him,” she said after they had found a hall that was empty and would lead them out of the building, even if the exit was two blocks from where Bond had parked his car next to the building. 

“You weren’t kidding when you said you hadn’t been trying before,” Bond said. He was aiming for humor but it fell flat at their feet.

“Unfortunately it didn’t happen quite like that,” she said and Bond waited for her to elaborate, though she never did.

“You thought I’d kill him,” Bond finally said as the exit came into view 

“Would I have been wrong?” 

“Does M know that I know?”

Eve stopped just out of earshot of the security officer at the door and turned to him. “It was a favor, Bond. Now go home and be retired.” She pulled a lockbox out from behind the stack of files she was carrying and held it out for him. “I got it from Franklin.”

Bond stared at her for a long moment before taking the box and smiling, making her eyes narrow just a little in response. “Good luck,” he said then continued on his way. Without looking back Bond disappeared through the door and onto the street. He made his way back to his flat, his mind engrossed in his newest problem.

* * *

At 10 o'clock that night Bond was sitting in the back of a bar with a clear line of sight to the back entrance of MI6 that everyone on the executive level used and watched Moneypenny, Tanner, and Mallory all walk out of the building together. Moneypenny walked down the street towards the Tube station and shortly after Mallory's car pulled out, turning left and Tanner's turned right. 

Bond slowly finished his drink and after no one else left the building while he did he left the bar and made his way down the block to another entrance that was hidden behind a wrought iron gate that if you followed the path you ended up in someone's garden but the door that lead into the tunnels was directly to the left and blended into the stone of the building. He found his way down spiral staircases and recalled the maze of tunnels that would lead him to the cells where Q was being kept. 

He kept his face turned away from the cameras and took the long way around to the cells to avoid seeing anyone on the night shift. The tunnels had more than one set of holding and interrogation cells that Bond had found during his explorations but Tanner had been leading Q past HR and towards the Southeast corner and there was only one set in that part of the building. They were set up as more long-term cells and Bond assumed Q would still be there that night. It wasn't likely that they had someone actively interrogating Q without someone there to oversee it. 

The door that led to the long-term cells was like most of the divisional doors of the tunnels, large, metal, and looking worse for wear. The only thing remarkable about it was that it was always closed and that there was always someone sitting behind the desk in front of it, even when Bond was sure that they didn’t have any guests. 

Bond crossed the hallway that lead to the door at a smooth pace and didn’t allow his eyes to linger on the door as he pretended to fiddle with his phone and kept his head bowed, sneaking a glance out of the corner of his eye. The guard sitting at the desk didn’t seem to concerned with Bond, he didn’t even look away from his computer, but when Bond was just on the other side and hidden by the wall he heard the metal chair scratch against the concrete floor as the man stood. 

“Yeah,” Bond heard him say. “I am. I know. You’re not the only… Yeah, okay.” The voice was getting closer and Bond slipped into the nearest office, full of dust and old paper files, as he waited for the sounds to pass by him. 

Silently Bond made his way to the desk and found the computer unlocked. “Tsk, tsk, someone needs a refresher on office conduct,” Bond said to himself as he started searching for the electronic lock to open the door. It was in the window half hidden by the man’s Pintrest board. 

The door’s automatic lock clicked behind the agent and he couldn’t help the small smile that spread across his face. 

He slid through the small opening of the door and closed it quietly behind himself. Inside the hallway was small with cell bars on one side with sparsely furnished cells behind them and a concrete wall on the other side. He could hear from one of the farther away cells the sound of someone shifting around on a bed and when he came to the final cell he saw what he had come for. 

Q was sitting on the bed with a thin blanket draped around his legs which were pulled up to his chest and he was staring out of the cell bars and right at Bond with his back to the other wall. His glasses were on, but Bond assumed that they had only been put back on when he had opened the door because his eyes were rimmed red to match the tip of the hackers nose. 

“I would have expected more of an audience for me execution. Maybe someone who still works for MI6,” Q said, his voice scratching and shaking despite the harsh words. 

“I’m not here to kill you,” Bond said, quietly. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew they were true, he just needed to work out why he was there. 

“Oh did they figure it out?” Q adjusted his glasses and arched a brow. 

“Figure what out?”

“That they need you. They won’t get into my computer without help,” Q said. He stood up slowly from the bed but stayed close to the opposite wall. 

“Why don’t you help them?”

“That would defeat the purpose,” Q argued. 

“What purpose?” Bond took a step forward and found his chest almost touching the bars. Q’s hand twitched at his side. 

“I’m here to set things right.”

“You think anything that you have can set right what you were doing in South Africa?” Bond sneered, his voice coming out taut over every syllable. The words shouldn’t have come out. They should have stayed locked up tight inside with the rest of his anger. Q didn’t need any more information than he already had; that was just more ammo. 

Q’s jaw clenched and he held silent for three long breaths, seemingly trying to calm himself only to snap, “Oh, please. The same government you serve sanctioned what I did. You’re just angry because you didn’t know about it.” Q waited until the shock registered on Bond’s face before continuing, though they both knew the expression was too late to be genuine. “MI6 isn’t the only government agency who delegates the dirty work. You can’t honestly be that surprised.” 

Bond took the half step that pressed him against the metal bars. “Did you forget that we found you? We know Japan was funding you.”

Q was quiet for a long time and took a step forward, still standing just out of reach of Bond, no more than two inches of air between them if Bond tried. He was obviously shooting for impassive or unimpressed but there was a shaking in his chest and the too rapid blinking of his eyes that gave him away. “My intel was good enough before I walked in here of my own accord, what’s changed?” 

The agent doesn’t flinch when Q said he came here himself but it’s a close thing. He needed to know more about that. That was why he was there. Still, there is information in questions and he held his tongue.

Q continued, “It was good enough in Prague, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Morocco. Had you forgotten you hate me? Did you just remember?” 

As the hacker spoke Bond’s jaw started to ache from clenching and his blunt nails were going to start drawing blood if he wasn’t careful. “I never forgot.”

“Could have fooled me. Do you chat on the phone with all your targets?” 

“Goodbye, Q.” Bond turned on his heal and strode towards the door again, leaving Q behind in his cell.

“I need better taste,” Q mumbled to himself, his voice echoing down the concrete hall and Bond almost smiled. 

The problem with the thick metal doors of the tunnels was that despite Bond’s pause and sharp hearing, he hadn’t heard Moneypenney, Mallory, Tanner, and Alec all standing on the other side of the door until he was staring at them. 

Mallory turned to look at Moneypenny beside him. “There are days when I wish you were wrong.”

Moneypenny’s grin only spread wider.

* * *

Mallory’s office seemed less crowded than Bond had expected with the five of them in there. Mallory was sitting in his chair, Tanner had pulled on of the other chairs one side while Moneypenny perched herself on the windowsill opposite and Bond and Alec stood in front of the desk. 

“Let’s make sure we’re all on the same page here,” Mallory started, leaning back in his chair and counting off on his fingers as he made his points. “Bond befriend an criminal hacker, who has since turned himself in for some unknown reason, he has a computer he says holds information proving that someone in our government ordered the spying of other government officials, but none of the IT specialists here can get into the computer. He claims R might be able to get in, and that Bond can get in if he wants, maybe. And we need to get into that computer and verify the information in the next 40 hours. Looks like this job just gets easier by the day.”

“Why 40 hours?” Bond asked.

“MI5 wants him back, apparently he’s done some work for them in the past,” Mallory said, waving his hand dismissively. 

“I doubt MI5 had anything to do with the surveillance, given that they’re asking for him,” Tanner chimed in. 

“That we can agree on. But what next?” 

“Bond needs to open the computer,” Moneypenny said, her arms crossed and staring at Bond, waiting for his argument. 

“Last time we did that we played into Silva’s plan. I don’t plan on doing it again,” Tanner said instead

“Then what do you suggest? We can’t hold him forever, not with MI5 counting down the seconds,” Moneypenny said. “And we won’t get another chance, he’s too careful.” 

“Exactly, he’s too careful and he just walks in here for no reason to turn himself in. Careful people don’t do these things without contingencies.”

“MI5 is his contingency.”

“We don’t even know if the intel is real,” Alec cut in. “We could be putting ourselves on the line over what could be pictures of cats.” 

Silence settled in the room for a moment while Moneypenny and Tanner both took breaths and thought of their next argument. “Bond,” Mallory said before either of them could start. “You’re the one he’s here for. What do you think?”

“If he says there’s something on that computer, then there’s something there and we need to see it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Twelve chapters in and these two nerds are just now meeting face to face... Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.


	13. Three In Particular

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's a little interrogation between friends?

It was a long night after Bond left the cell. Q was sure, at least as sure as he could be with no access to the sun or a clock, that the former-agent’s visit it has been in the dead of night. He had already been drifting away from actively berating himself and towards the edges of sleep when the door had opened. By the time the door shut and Bond was gone, Q was dead exhausted.

He crawled under the thin blanket, tucking himself into a ball with his arms bent under the pillow and waited for sleep to come. He wasn’t picky about which kind of sleep: restless, dreamless, fitful, nightmare filled, sweet dreams. Anything was better than staring at the bricks surrounding him and thinking about James Fucking Bond. Instead of being granted that one small mercy Q laid awake, wondering at every word that Bond had said. Three in particular. _I never forgot._

There had been a time - before things had gotten out of hand the first time, before Q had ever left England - when he had thought himself close to a machine in logic, never straying from the most reasonable path. That delusion had nearly gotten him killed twice before he had accepted his flawed and hopeless heart. Now he knew better and usually he could think around it. Maneuvering his own heart around itself to keep out of danger had become second nature and hiding behind the computer had helped keep him separate from the world but now something had gone terribly wrong. Instead he had fallen for Bond’s best trick, the one right at the top of his file. _Seducer/Manipulator._

The worst of it was that he was still falling for it. After being locked in a cell in the depths of MI6, Q was still playing Bond’s words on repeated in his mind, hoping that against all odds and his better judgment that Bond had left a hint that he cared about Q as more than just a completed mission. The words played and replayed, the sight of Bond without the grain of CCTV cameras, burned into his mind’s eye like some sort of torturous movie. 

Somewhere during the loop he was able to doze into something that might have been called rest. Every time the bed under him squeaked he startled fully awake but he was able to make himself lie still and at some moments he might have actually been asleep. 

Every illusion of sleep was banished with the overhead lights that had ben dimmed for the night snapped to full alert and Q with them. The door’s lock clicked, sounding loud as a gunshot in the dead silence of the cell. One set of foot beats sounded down the hall and Q put his glasses back on to stare through the bars. 

“Tanner,” Q said when the chief of staff stepped into view. There was a slight shuffling sound and Alec appeared next to him. “Alec.”

“Did you miss me?” Alec asked, his grin insufferable. Q wondered vaguely if all Double-0 agents were this completely obnoxious. 

“I think more than 10 hours have to pass before you can miss a person,” Q said. 

“But Q dear, it's been almost twelve hours. We let you sleep in and everything” Alec said. 

“How generous.”

“It is. Come on. We're moving you again,” Tanner said. Somehow the man always struck the balance between irritated and bored with everything that happened. 

Q stood and ran a hand through his hair, hoping to calm it down a bit. “I'm going to start thinking you guys just want to parade me around.” He put his shoes back on and laced them up. Alec opened the cell a second after he had stood up straight again and cuffed his arms behind his back. 

“You do look so pretty in cuffs,” Alec said. 

“Do you have to sexually harass everyone?” Tanner asked. 

“I don't harass Eve,” Alec defended. The walked out of the cell and down the narrow hall, Tanner in front of them and Q a half step in front of Alec who held onto the chain of the handcuffs. 

“That's because she threatened you with desk duty.” Tanner leveled Alec with a look as they stepped through the door and Tanner waited to hear the lock reengage. 

Alec decided to switch tactics as they started through the tunnels again; Alec was able to step to almost even with Tanner in the wider halls. “Bond gets to flirt with Q but I can't?”

“No flirting for Bond either. Q’s a prisoner, not a mark.” Tanner looked at Q when he said it and some part of Q wondered how long he had trained to make a threat sound like a reassurance. 

Q didn't respond but Tanner didn't seem interested in his answer anyway and they continued in silence. It wasn't a long way to the next room they would keep him in and they lead him into a small room with a stainless steel desk, two matching chairs, and a mirror on one wall that was undoubtedly also a window. 

Alec led him to the chair that faced the mirror and cuffed him to the desk, which was screwed to the floor. This chain was longer and if Q was careful he could rest his arms in a way that made him forget about the restraints entirely. Just as Q was about to ask which one of them would be doing the interrogating today the door opened and Moneypenny came in with a tray of food and the men snuck out of the room. 

“Good morning, Kieran,” she said with a deceptive brightness. “Or do you prefer Q?”

“I don't know who Kieran is so Q.” 

Moneypenny caught him staring at the tray of food and she slid it over to him. “Eat up.”

There was a bowl of steaming oatmeal sprinkled with blueberries, a muffin, slices of fruit, and a bottle of water. Q picked up the metal spoon and arched an eyebrow at Moneypenny who laughed. “You're chained to a table surrounded by Double-0s, sitting across from a MI6 field agent, and that’s a spoon. I like to think that you're smarter than to try anything.”

“So do I,” Q said with his own smile and started to eat the oatmeal in front of him. He got two bites in and the third halfway to his mouth when he said, “when do the questions start?”

“Can't we ever just have a normal conversation? We never talk anymore,” Moneypenny said with a laugh. It was disturbing how likeable she was and how easy it would be to just relax and tell her everything. 

“I know. I've just been so busy at work running from the British intelligence community,” Q shot back between bites of oatmeal. He hadn't realized how hungry he had been until the berries burst in his mouth. The anxiety of his first imprisoned night had made his stomach curl at the sight of the provided sandwich the night before. 

“You always make time for Bond,” she said and the air was still light and playful and Q blamed his always-suffering social skills on his easy response. 

“That's for work. He can't hold an candle to you for conversation.” Q pulled the fruit nearer to him after his spoon scrapped the bottom of the bowl. 

“You think he’s bad now? You should see him when he's not flirting.”

“Threatening to kill someone is generally not considered flirting,” Q said.

“No, but he stopped doing that a while back, didn’t he?”

Q was quiet for a moment and just watched the woman across from him with the prim smile and the sharp eyes. He was quickly remembering why he didn’t like interacting with people in person, no matter how likable. There were too many variables in what Eve knew and what Bond had held back. The smart move was to act like she knew nothing more about him than he had already disclosed and assume that she knew everything. 

Bond was loyal to a fault and his contact with Q was already being scrutinized, he would have disclosed everything to protect himself and, Bond thought, to protect England. Q couldn’t blame him for that. 

“He never deleted the texts from you. And he’s been filling in the blanks of the conversations since his late night visit to your cell,” she continued. 

“If I had thought his phone was at risk of falling into the wrong hands I would have force deleted the texts. Or never sent them.” Q pushed the now mostly empty tray of food to the side, leaving only the table between them. 

“Even when we took it?”

“I was talking directly to one of the most patriotic men in the world. I knew everything was coming back to Six one way or the other. I wasn’t concerned with you or Tanner reading them.” Q’s voice was steady, and his mind was finding peace in working out what to say next. Still there was a small part that worried that she would see the lie on his face. He was more than a little concerned with people reading those texts, boring and unrevealing as they were, they were still something he cherished. Maybe he should have listened to JoJo and got a boyfriend a long time ago. At the very outside he wouldn’t be in the MI6 basement.

“I’m glad, because our best analysts are reading them right now. Whatever password you thought you gave Bond, we’re going to find it.”

“You won’t find it in those texts. You know that. I wouldn’t be in here if you thought you could.”

“You have no way of knowing that for sure,” Moneypenny said with a refreshed grin. 

When Q didn’t say anything more and just leveled an arched brow and pursed lips at her Moneypenny sighed.

“You want us in the computer, just open for us. Why does it have to be Bond? Postponing this isn’t going to make Bond love you.”

“I don’t need him to love me,” Q said with an indignant squawk. 

“Yes, you do. You turned yourself in, brought this computer here which you told Tanner contains all your work history and every piece of information on those employers and their targets. I’ve read the texts and the transcripts of your call a few weeks ago. For Pete’s sake you put yourself on the line to save his life. Exposed yourself to all of us to stop him from falling down some stairs. I know you’re in love with him. You know you’re in love with him. Now if you want any kind of contact with him again other then him being your executioner you will open that computer.”

She had stood up somewhere during her speech and was leaning half over the table, her hands braced on either side of her as she stared him down. The silence was thick in the air, pulled tight between them and stretching on forever. Moneypenny’s eyes were hard and cold, never blinking as she waited for the answer he couldn’t form around the lump in his throat.

The silence was broken some unknown amount of time later when the door opened and R peaked her head into the room. “Moneypenny, a word,” was all she said and disappeared. 

“I’ll give you a moment to think about it,” Moneypenny said before standing up and leaving Q alone in the room. 

He stared at the mirror and despite himself hoped that he was looking at Bond. That hope was the only thing that Q could wrap his mind around for the first ten seconds as he counted his breaths. 

Finally his mind cleared and he could think through everything that was happening. He had locked the computer with a simple password and just enough security protocols to be a challenge; certainly they would be able to get it open without much trouble. If Bond knew how to use his head and could see past the red haze that apparently came out whenever Q was involved he would have already guessed the password and moved on. There was also the possible that they were already in the computer and were making a test of loyalty, to see if Q actually was willing to help. There was also the possibility that they weren’t.

The door opened behind him and Moneypenny came back in, setting her phone down on the table this time. She sat down in silence, her hands folded in front of her.

“I'll open it,” Q said. He was tempted to add that he wasn't doing it for Bond but he didn't think that she would believe that anymore than he did. 

Her smile returned in full force and pulled the keys out of her blazer and unshackled him from the table. “Small freedoms.” She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arm out until she could knock on the mirror. “Bring the laptop. I didn't think unneeded to keep up the facade for you,” she said, only the last sentence meant for him. 

The door opened again and R can in, holding the laptop tucked under her arm. “You should know that this room can't receive electronic signals of any kind, so trying to access our network will only wield frustration.” She set the computer down in front of him. 

“I would expect no less.” He lifted the lid of the computer and clicked it awake. Then a smile spread over his face, small and then wider. “Seems a bit redundant to have me unlock a computer you’ve already opened.”

R ginned and Moneypenny frowned.

“Did you think I couldn’t get past the safeguards you invented?”

“Only about six people in the world can program them and I know two of them personally.”

“Five. LastRat is dead. And after your and Bond’s little meeting in South Africa I’ve picked up a new hobby of trying to break everything you’ve invented.”

“Shouldn’t it be me trying to break the things you create?”

Moneypenny cut the conversation short. “How did you know we had already gotten in?”

“I designed the OS, though this is a more tame version of what I usually use. The background changes minutely whenever it's accessed, by force or otherwise. Simple but useful.”

“I keep trying to get them to update our OS, but it has to be able to communicate with MI5’s so we can't mess with it,” R said. 

“I've seen the OS you're working with. It's shameful,” Q said. 

R sat herself down on the edge of the table but Moneypenny stood and R slipped off in almost the same second. “I’d tell you two to get a room, but I think I'll just go.” She motioned at the laptop and Q typed the password in quickly. Moneypenny turned to R directly as she picked up the laptop. “He doesn't leave without an escort, preferable of the Double-0 variety. I’m sure that one of them sitting behind the glass will be more than willing.”

R nodded and watched Moneypenny leave before sitting in the chair across from Q. “You think it's shameful now, you should have to try and work in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!


	14. Come For The Secret Agent

Bond was close enough to the glass that if he swayed forward even slightly his folded arms would brush against it. The same arms that had remained passively by hid side until Moneypenny had started yelling at Q about being in love with Bond. By the time he had noticed what he was doing it was too late and Alec and Tanner were already shooting him looks that said _You’re joking?_

Now Q and R were going back and forth about computers and operating systems and a lot of other things Bond didn’t really care about, still he stayed. Mallory and Tanner had left, most likely to discuss what they were going to do with Q and maybe even what they were going to do with Bond himself. In the back of his mind he knew he should have been trying to sneak a peak into that meeting, but instead he found that he wanted to stay.

That left Bond and Alec alone in the room watching through glass. Alec was sitting on a chair behind Bond, leaning back on the two hind legs. Bond could feel his gaze on him. “Get any closer and you’re going to fall through the glass.”

Bond turned around and glared at Alec who just grinned back. He went over and sat next to Alec. 

He hadn’t heard Q’s voice much during the chase but it was quickly becoming Bond’s favorite sound. The words didn’t seem to matter they were just soothing. An urge rose up in him to talk so he couldn’t hear Q anymore. “How was Russia?”

“Same way it always is. Same way it’ll be next time. Only had to get shot at twice to confirm my cover identity,” Alec said with a shrug. He was pretending not to watch Bond, his body the very essence of relaxation even when he was tensing for what he said next. “Last time I saw you you were out for this kid’s blood.”

“He’s not a kid. And things change.”

“Obviously, now you’re out for his dick.” The grin that spread across Alec’s face told Bond that no matter what he said in retaliation Alec was going to think it was worth it.

“You’ve been gossiping with Moneypenny again.” 

“Don’t need to. You vouched for him, that’s practically a marriage proposal coming from you,” Alec laughed quietly. They weren’t concerned with any of the sound coming from them being heard through the glass. R and Q both knew they were there, no point in trying to be quiet. 

Bond didn’t answer.

Alec shrugged and looked away, back towards the window where R and Q were talking about Silva’s code. 

The touchscreen that had been installed next to the window lit up as a message appeared. Alec let the feet of his chair come down as he leaned forward to read the message. “They want you upstairs.”

Bond sighed and stood, straightening his suit as he did. “I’m going to start thinking they have a thing for me up there.”

“Mallory might, I don’t think you’re getting Moneypenny or Tanner on that one,” Alec said with a grin. “I’ll take him back when they’re done,” he nodded at Q. “Drinks tonight?”

“I get the feeling I can’t. Working.”

“Don’t work too hard. You don’t want to lead Mallory on.” 

Bond just smirked and left.

Upstairs Mallory and Tanner were sitting across from each other in dead silence when Bond walked in. Mallory motioned for Bond to sit next to Tanner but stayed silent, obviously weighing his options. “How much do you trust this Q?”

Bond was silent for a while before he said, “His intel has always been good.”

“We know you’re compromised, Bond, but that’s a problem for a different day. Are you saying that you trust him for Queen and Country or just for Q?” Tanner asked, more sharpness than he usually allowed to slip into his tone. 

Bond glared at Tanner, but Mallory seemed just as interested in the answer to the question. “I trust him.”

“I was afraid of that,” Mallory muttered, more to Tanner than to Bond. “Call Joan at Five. It seems we have some work to do.” 

Tanner nodded and stood up, his face stone cold and lips pressed in a tight line worrying over something. 

“We’ll call you when we need you,” Mallory said to Bond and turned to his computer and frowned deeper. Bond followed Tanner out of the office.

* * *

It turned out that MI6 didn't need him for three days. When he returned he dressed in his favorite suit - dark almost black blue, a bright almost-white blue shirt, dark blue tie, and a pair of cufflinks that exploded when twisted together. He was still an hour early for his brief with Mallory and it was about lunch time so could he really be blamed for taking Q’s tray of food from the Q-Branch intern and offering to take it to the cell himself? It was only polite. 

He was in the same cell he had been in on Bonds first visit but there was music playing this time when the door opened and none of the cells were shut. He was sitting in the last cell with a yellow legal pad on his knees, bent in half over it as he continued to scribble with his pen. 

Bond cleared his throat at the open cell door but Q didn't look up. “Let me just finish this line,” he said instead. 

So Bond did. He watched Q write code by hand, his lips in a tight line as he almost glared at the page. Something about the thought that Q had probably stared at the computer in much the same way when he had been talking to Bond made him smile, small and private. 

Finally Q looked up and the pen flipped out of his hand when Q realized that it wasn't in fact the intern he had been expecting. Q swallowed and his eyes were wide behind his glasses. Bond realized why a second too late. He tried not be disappointed by it. 

“I'm not here to kill you, just deliver lunch.” His voice was tight in his own ears. 

Q pretended not to be scared and stood up to take the tray. He set it down on the desk that's screwed to the wall but didn't sit in the chair. Instead he sat on the bed and motioned to the metal chair. “I have time for a break. I don't get to see too many people down here.”

Bond wanted to but stayed. He must have stared at the chair for a second too long because Q stood up and handed the chair to Bond who set himself up just outside the threshold of the cell. “What are you working on?”

“A new operating system. You need one in a bad way and who better to write it than the man who broke into it everyday for months?” Q was perusing his food options as he spoke and his voice couldn't have been more matter-of-fact, but then he turned to Bond and gave him a smirk that made Bond smile against his will. 

“Maybe someone who didn't stalk me?” Bond suggested with a smile. 

“Still bitter about that? You sure know how to hold a grudge. I forgave you for shooting at me.” Q picked up the bag of crisps and popped one in his mouth. From the end of the bed where Q was sitting and Bond’s chair Bond could reach out and take one from the bag when Q stretched out to offer. 

“You're still convinced I'm going to shoot you one of the days I come in here,” Bond said, crunching the crisp. “So forgiven isn't the word I’d use.”

Q didn't answer; just continued eating.

“I don't want to shoot you.”

Q didn't hold the honesty against him. “That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me.”

“I wouldn't get used to it.” Bond smiled and felt light as air. 

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Q said. He looked back down at the pad and frowned. Bond stayed quiet for a long time. He was content to watch Q stare down the writing and Q seemed more than willing to forget that Bond was even there. 

“Why are you here?” Bond asked suddenly. He needed to know and there didn't seem to be the same danger now that there had been. Q was likely to stick around if Moneypenny was to be believed so maybe they were on the same side now. 

Q’s head snapped back up to look at Bond, his brows furrowed a little and he frowned like Bond was a particularly vexing piece of code. Or what Bond imagined Q looked like staring at code that didn't want to cooperate. “You know why.”

“I know what Moneypenny said,” Bond said through gritted teeth. 

“Do you need me to say it? She’s right. I can here because I thought I could be some sort of hero and get you to love me back. Things changed. You don’t love me, or have any interest in trying to but they asked me to stay.”

“So you're staying?” None of the hope that Bond could feel swelling up in him escaped into his tone and he was thankful that Q wasn't bothering to look at him. He seemed too busy staring at the notepad again. 

“The pay isn't as good, but I won’t have to move as much. Maybe I can even get a cat, if I'm ever allowed to leave.”

“Come for the secret agent; stay for the cats?” Bond said with a smirk and Q rewarded him with a small laugh before continuing. 

“I used to have a cat…before,” Q cut himself short and his eyes went distant. There was silence for a long time but eventually Q’s eyes snap back up to look at Bond. “She was a tabby who hated everyone but me.”

Bond had to catch himself before he said something stupid like _at least we would have had something in common_. Instead he checked the time on his phone and saw that he was five minutes late to his meeting with Mallory and Moneypenny was texting him to find out where he was. 

He stood up and moved the chair back against the wall so it faced Q’s cell door. “They're sending me to Costa Rica,” Bond said before he could think better of it. He wanted Q to know, he could work out why later. That seemed to be a theme for him when it came to Q. Good thing it was a long flight to Central America. 

Q didn't smile, but Bond thought he could see the small pull at the corner of his lips, or maybe that was just his imagination. “Well do say hello to our friends for me.”

“Will do.”

* * *

The work in Costa Rica didn’t take long. Alec and Bond went in guns blazing since every other Double-0 had been called back to MI6 for some unknown reason. It probably had something to do with the whispers that always seemed to feature the words “Bond” and “Q”, and the sudden regular appearance of the head of MI5. 

One of the other handlers was on the line and reading the documents that they managed to send over unencrypted. He was clever enough to do the job but he wasn’t omniscient, unlike some Bond knew, so they were almost done when he informed them they were headed to Nebraska, USA. 

After they’d packed up every computer, phone, tablet and made copies of all the hand written notes they left. On the way out the door Alec grabbed a bundle of drugs and shrugged at Bond’s flat look. “Spending money.”

They left half of the devices to be shipped home by the agent in Limon, MI6 apparently wanted to spread it between a few different shipments to avoid the reclaiming effort that was underway. When they entered the US with the still unseemly amount of hard drives and computers Felix was waiting for them and waved a badge at some uniformed men.

“Have I ever told you how much of a pain in my ass you are?” was all Felix said before leading them out of customs in Texas before their connection to Nebraska. He didn’t stick around much longer once they were in the airport terminal, waiting. Felix just turned to Bond and muttered quietly, “you owe me an explanation. A big one,” and then turned around to join a woman with dark brown hair that was glaring at Bond.

In Nebraska Bond and Alec emptied another building, curtsey of the computer intel and a small time dealer who thought that Bond and Alec were his next supply line after Alec paid him for the intel with a kilo of white powder. 

Two hours away from the Lincoln suburb with their rental car filled with more hard drives they got a call from Q-Branch informing them of where to trop off the computer parts and that the Americans had been called in to clean up their mess. 

Somewhere in the background Bond was sure he could hear Old-Q, Q, and R arguing. It made him smile while he faced away from Alec. 

Alec noticed anyway. 

Then it was off to Ontario, then Venezuela, then Argentina and soon they had been gone nearly three weeks and both agents had started to feel it. Alec was used to long-term missions, but Six didn't usually keep them running missions back to back in such an fashion. It always put Medical in a tizzy. 

They were sitting on their hotel beds in Argentina watching BBC News (they might have hunted for the channel for ten solid minutes to find it). 

The anchor had the usual troubled look and stared at the camera as he said “Max Denbigh was arrested this afternoon at his office.” A video of a slim dark haired man with a deep scowl dressed in a fine suite being lead in handcuffs out of a building as the anchor contained. “Charges have not yet been officially released, but some sources report that Mr. Denbigh was ordering illegal wiretaps on British citizens. Now we cut to MI5’s live statement regarding Mr. Denbigh.”

Alec and Bond watched as the image cut to a podium and a woman in a suit walked out and started to list the charges that were being brought against Denbigh. They didn't even mute it until she started taking press questions.

“Your boy wasn't lying,” Alec said, seemingly in shock. 

“Told you his intel was good.” He didn't even question himself when he said it, Q’s other crimes could be dealt with later. Right now they had a win. Right now Bond could be proud.

“No shit.”

* * *

After the work in Argentina was done Alec and Bond were finally allowed to come home. Moneypenny was waiting for them outside the gate, arms crossed and phone in hand, typing one handed until she caught sight of them. 

“Did you get our care packages?” Bond asked as they came into earshot. 

“We did, that particular can of worms will have to wait though, M wants you to debrief immediately. I’m sure you saw the news.”

“So you didn’t come because you miss us?” 

“Been too busy to miss you,” Moneypenny said then smiled when her phone vibrated in her hand. She turned around and started out of the building, two secret agents in tow. 

“New boyfriend?” Alec asked. 

Moneypenny was still grinning as she text back. “Yes, but not mine,” she said, shooting a look at Bond. 

Bond decided not to answer. 

Once they arrived at the MI6 issued car Moneypenny and Alec both got in, Bond stood next to the driver’s door after Moneypenny shut it. She rolled down the window and looked up at him. 

“I'm afraid, Miss Moneypenny, that I’ll have to meet you there. I drove here.”

“Someone can get your car.”

“You're not leaving me to debrief with Mallory by myself,” Alec said, leaning over from the passenger seat. 

“Wouldn't dream of it. I'll be right behind you,” Bond said. 

“When you're late I’m going to kill you,” Moneypenny said. 

“That's a threat you really have to get right the first time. One you fail to kill someone once it tends to lose its sting,” Bond said, putting a hand on the now familiar knot of scar tissue in his shoulder. 

Moneypenny just rolled up the car window and drove away. 

Bond turned to find his car and went as fast as he could to it Even with Moneypenny’s begrudging ‘permission’ Bond did need to hurry. He had a lot to do and Moneypenny might not kill him but he might wish she had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the new chapter! Thanks for reading!


	15. Dinner Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q has a really good day.

It had been almost a month since Q had come to MI6 and he almost considered his cells a home, unorthodox as they might have been. None of the individual cells were locked anymore so he had a bit of his own suite. The last cell, where they had originally put him, was still his bedroom. A real mattress had been delivered about a week into his work on the new OS. It had come with real blankets, sheets, and a space heater. R took the credit for the bed though she seemed just as surprised as he was when they had walked in after a meeting with Major Boothroyd.

The next cell over had been converted into an office of sorts. There was a chair that didn’t make Q go numb when he sat too long and a supply of paper, pens, and pencils so that he could continue working. He still hadn’t been allowed a computer of any sort, though he had complained about it more than enough to anyone who would listen. None of them were sympathetic. 

Tanner had offered a typewriter.

R had pointed out that the QWERTY typewriter wasn’t patented until 1878 and that Ada Lovelace had already invented computer programming by hand by then. 

Moneypenny had brought him a flip phone from somewhere still stuck in 2004. It had two phone numbers already programmed in it. $ and <3\. Q texted Moneypenny a thank you, changed her name and ignored <3\. 

In the end it was easy to fall into the routine and pretend that he wasn’t being held captive. After all he did choose to stay and the small freedoms were starting to pile on.

Moneypenny and Q always went to get tea and breakfast together at one of the many cafés that surrounded the different tunnel exits. They rarely even took the same route and Q wondered if it was to disorient him or was a way to show him around. He found he didn’t care either way. 

Tanner took him out for lunch more often than not with the same changing exits and paths that Moneypenny took, though never on the same day. He was sure they coordinated. They were the type to conspire. 

R was the one who usually stayed late and took him to dinner, though it was in the cafeteria more often than not. They would sit and review his work, bouncing ideas off each other. Those were the easiest. When he was outside of MI6 he was able to pretend that he was normal, that Tanner or Moneypenny was just friends and not someone who was low-key trying to interrogate him. When he was still in the depth of the organization talking about work he didn’t have to face the truth when he was returned to his room. 

R was also the person most likely to give him information about what was going on. She seemed to be under the impression that if the information came from Q then it couldn’t hurt too much to tell them what they were doing with it if it was all going to become trial proceedings anyway. 

Moneypenny helped him in other ways, namely bringing him new clothes after she got sick of looking at him in the same jumper everyday. “If I am going to get coffee with you the least you can do is look presentable.” Q had agreed that even he was sick of it and tried to tame his hair in the mornings. He put more effort into it on the mornings that he was craving news about Bond; from the way Moneypenny grinned when his clothes matched she had noticed. 

The problem with that was that Moenypenny, despite her joking, was tight lipped on the matter of Bond and almost everything else. Tanner, though, was more than willing to tell Q all about the trouble that Bond had gotten himself and Alec into. Sometimes he lied — Tanner said that they had sent Bond back to South Africa, but Bond had told him he was going to Costa Rica—but it was better than nothing. 

All in all he was learning to be happy there. 

He was sitting in his office, with his legs tucked under him and hunched over a piece of code when the door clicked open loudly. He didn’t immediately recognize the step pattern, though it was hidden under the music he had playing. Tanner and him had already gone to lunch and it was far too early for R to want dinner. 

He turned the chair around and hid away his surprise when he saw Bond standing outside the cell door his jacket over one arm. It was curled awkwardly against his chest but Q ignored it to watch Bond’s eyes rake over him. It was almost enough for Q to think he had a shot before he could stop himself. He pushed the thought away so he could say “Eve got sick of looking at my clothes.”

“I’m glad,” Bond said with a grin of his own.

Silence ensued and Q even counted the seconds to make sure he wasn’t just being impatient. When he got to 20 he said, “Did you change your mind about killing me?” The joke fell a little flat. They might need a few more weeks and for Q to have moved out of his cell before execution jokes were actually funny. 

Bond smiled and pretended that it was funny anyway. “Guns don’t typically crawl around on their own.” 

Q stood up to get a better view as Bond lifted one corner of the jacket – Q realized that it was the jacket that Q had left for Bond in Brazil. It sent a small thrill up his spine, but it faded to the background when he realized what it was that Bond had hidden in the folds of fabric. 

He reached forward without thinking and picked he kitten out of the jacket and cradled it against his chest. “I’m not giving him back,” Q said absently. It was a small tabby who seemed intent on crawling up Q’s chest but couldn’t quite manage with his short claws digging into the knit of his sweater. 

“I don’t want him back. He’s for you,” Bond said. When Q looked back up at him Bond had a soft smile that Q mirrored. 

“Come for the secret agent; stay for the cat?” 

Bond laughed.

“How do expect me to take care of him? I live in a cell in tunnels under London.”

“I have a few things in the car to help, but Tanner won’t be able to resist helping. He’s a sucker for cats.”

“Man after my own heart,” Q mumbled.

“Not the only one.”

“I don’t think Alec’s interest is genuine.”

Bond actually laughed, a huge grin on his face. “That’s because Alec has never been attracted to anyone who wasn’t Alec.”

Q’s own laugh was cut short by his phone vibrating on the table in sync with Bond’s ringing in his pocket. 

It was Eve. Q answered, moving the kitten around to support him with one hand. 

“Bond wouldn’t happen to be with you would he?” Eve asked. Bond stared back at Q, and pocketed his still ringing phone. 

“He is. I’ll send him up.”

“Thank you. You sound too happy. What’s going on in that room, young man?” Eve laughed. 

“I’m not telling.”

“No fun.” 

“Goodnight, Eve.” He closed the phone and set it back on the desk and adjusted the kitten again. He was going to have to start thinking of a name soon. “I believe you have a debrief to attend.”

Bond’s eyes snapped to the corners of the room.

“They took out the cameras in the cells, but not the one on the front door.”

Bond nodded and turned to leave. 

Q was going to kick himself for his next move later, he knew it even as he did it but couldn’t help himself. He reached out and grabbed Bond’s arm. Bond stopped walking, half turned to face Q. “When you’re done up there you still owe me those cat supplies. Don’t forget.”

Bond twisted out of Q’s grip faster than Q had expected, secret agent or no, and surged closer, his lips pressing against Q’s and then disappearing again so fast Q wondered if he’d made it up. Bond’s shit eating grin made him sure he hadn’t. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Bond disappeared before Q had time to put all of his thoughts in a coherent order.

Q grinned at the kitten still in his arms and sat back on the chair in front of the desk. 

“What am I going to do with him?”

* * *

An hour after Bond left Q was sitting on his bed watching the still unnamed kitten crawl around in the blankets, and twitching his feet under the blankets ever once in a while just to watch the fluff ball pounce on a new lump. The door clicked open again and R’s voice came down the hall. 

“Derek outside said that Bond was here earlier, please tell me you’ve managed to put clothes back on.” 

“I’m completely naked, R and have been for the last hour in this dungeon cell,” Q called back to her.

“You have blankets,” she said as she came around the corner and stepped into the cell.

“Not enough,” he shot back.

R was more focused on the kitten. “He brought you a cat.” She sounded more tired than surprised. 

“He did. You’re a little early for dinner,” he said, looking at the clock on the wall. 

“We have a meeting,” R said, finally looking up from the kitten to Q. 

Q stood up from the bed but hesitated, frowning at the metal bars of the cell. They were narrow enough to stop a human but wouldn’t slow down the kitten and Q didn’t really want it to be able to get to his office. Who knew what kind of trouble it could get into with how much paper and hand work he had to do.

“Bring the cat. They’re going to find out soon enough anyway,” R said. 

“We’re not just going to see Boothroyd?” He scooped the kitten into his arms and followed R out of the room.

“He’ll be there, but we’re going to M’s office.” 

At the mention of Mallory anxiety rose up in Q’s throat and lodged there. While he had been running from Bond he had seen Mallory in video feeds, read his emails, and listened to his phone calls but he had yet to meet the man in person. They had made a decision. Q tried to argue with his own anxiety that if there was going to be bad news they wouldn’t be dragging him all the way upstairs, they’d just leave him in the basement. 

They stepped out of the elevator and found himself into an annex with Moneypenny leaning against the front of a desk that was sitting in front of a door with a tablet in hand and Alec and James in front of her. They looked over at the elevator and Bond grinned at the sight of the kitten in Q’s arms. 

“A cat? You were late because you bought him a cat? That couldn’t have waited?” Moneypenny said, shaking her head.

“No,” Bond said, barely even turning to look at her.

She opened her mouth to argue with him but seemed to think better of it and turned to Q and R. “Mallory will see you now. And you two,” she pointed back to the agents “go home.”

“You’re no fun,” Alec said. 

Inside Mallory was sitting behind his desk, Boothroyd sat in a chair next to him, and Tanner was perched leaning against the windowsill. R and Q sat in the two chairs in front of the desk. The three men’s eyes locked on the kitten in Q’s lap for a split second and they all seemed to have put the same story together since all their shoulders slumped slightly for a second and each rolled their eyes. 

“I trust you understand that the investigation into Max Denbigh is still being conducted and that extends over you as well?” Mallory said. His voice was level and his face was all but devoid of emotion but in a way that made it seem more like his natural expression than an actual dislike of Q. 

Q nodded. 

“Should that investigation come back clearing you of any charges we’re prepared to offer you a position here.” All eyes were on Q as Mallory continued but he still couldn't stop his lips from curling into a mock smile. 

Mallory was the first to laugh but Tanner was the first to talk. “We don’t expect it to come back clear either.”

“Then what’s the point of this?” Q asked, not quite keeping the edge out of his voice. 

Mallory and Tanner just gave him an unimpressed look. “Think of it as a community service probation. If you choose to decline, which of course you could, you’ll be moved to an actual prison tonight.”

“And I’ll take your cat,” Tanner tacked on with a smile. 

“Should I choose to accept?” 

Mallory pulled a thick stack of papers out of a manila folder and set it down in front of Q. “First you’ll surrender all your assets, including your other computers and the data you’ve stored, you didn’t think we actually believed that was everything? You won’t be able to work on a computer unsupervised by R or someone she deems fit to watch you.”

“You’ll also be assigned to MI6 controlled housing, we’ll ensure that you’re with other members of Q-Branch,” Major Boothroyd cut in. “Like minds.”

“For how long?” Q picked up the stack of papers and started to glance over them. 

“Does it matter? If you go to prison it’ll be maximum security, you’ll never be in contact with your friend and the CIA again, likely never even see a computer again, and your assets will still be seized,” Mallory explained, just as calm and disinterested as he had been when describing the MI6 preferred option. 

He didn’t sigh out loud but it was a close thing. 

“We won’t try to convince you, we don’t want you if you don’t want to be here, we can’t even trust you when you do want to be here,” Tanner said.

“I don’t need to be convinced. I don’t like leaving projects undone.” 

Major Boothroyd barked a laugh. “You could just say you want to stay.”

* * *

It was another half hour of signing documents on Moneypenny’s desk complete with her own comments on the terms of his employment. 

“You don’t have to go to the Q building, Jo across the hall would be happy to switch with you.” 

“You have that much and I’ve been paying for your tea? You owe me.” 

“Have you named the fur ball? I’m routing for Max, he brought you to us after all.” 

When he was done Moneypenny offered to walk him back to his particular level of the basement. They were almost to the door when she asked if he wanted to get dinner but stopped short on the last word and in her tracks. “Or were you thinking of something with a little less substance?” 

He followed her gaze to Bond walking down the hall with his suit jacket and vest discarded somewhere safe with his tie. A small section of his throat was exposed from the first few open buttons and his shirt sleeves where rolled to his elbows. He also had the biggest bag of cat food that any of them had seen over one shoulder, a carrier in the other hand bursting with toys, and a litter box with a huge bag of litter under his arm. 

“007, license to kill, delivering cat litter to his boyfriend,” Moneypenny said in a way that let both men know that she would be pulling the security tapes to show Tanner. 

Q opened his mouth to argue the point about the term boyfriend when Bond flashed her a grin. “Are you jealous that I never brought you a kitten?”

“I’m more of a dog person.”

Bond’s grin seemed to widen. 

“Smart ones, who don’t fall off of a train just because they were shot,” Moneypenny rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. And Bond, I already like Q more than you so be nice.”

“What if I don’t want him to be nice?” Q asked squashing his own grin and shooting for innocent. 

“Then you’ve certainly found the right man.”

Q turned back to Bond who was standing in front of the door with a proud grin. Derek was still sitting at the desk engrossed with whatever was on his screen, from the reflection in his glasses it looked to be the Google homepage. 

He didn’t so much as twitch when Q grabbed the door handle and pulled it open without it having to unlock. _Small freedoms_. With the kitten still cradled to his chest and sleeping he went into the rooms and deposited it onto the bed. 

Bond started stacking the boxes in a corner and before too long he was pulling handfuls of felt mice out of the carrier and then filling it with a blanket for it to sleep on. Q did what he was best at and watched Bond puzzle over the items he had bought. “You’ve never had a cat.”

“Always dogs. Can’t stand cats,” Bond said. He stood up from where he had been crouched and sat next to Q. 

Q stood up as soon as Bond was next to him and tucked the kitten into the carrier. He turned to face Bond who was half lounged over the bed and giving Q a predatory smile. “I appreciate Izzy,” Q started. 

Bond cut him off. “Is that what you named the cat?”

Q continued like he had never spoken. “But I don’t have an interest in joining your seduced criminal collection.”

Bond didn’t move but as Q watched him all the good humor left the air in some shift he couldn’t see. “Collection?” Bond said, it almost sounded light. 

“Would you prefer “club”?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t think so lowly of me.” When Bond stood it was slow and deliberate with his eyes still locked on Q. 

Q stood his ground even as Bond continued his measured steps into Q’s personal space. “You got what you wanted from me so you can drop the act. I don’t need it anymore. You said it yourself; you never forgot that you hated me even if you don’t want to shoot me.”

They were almost sharing breath by the time Bond stopped. Q could smell him, he remembered in a flash the feeling of Bonds lips on his, and the way that his laugh sounded. Bond smiled again. “It’s the criminal underworld, Q, everyone lies.”

The smiled cracked despite Q’s valiant efforts not to let it. “I hate you.” He leaned forward, their lips just a split second from kissing when Bond spoke. 

“I think you mispronounced love.”

Q kissed him in favor of listening to whatever else Bond had to say. He slipped his arm under Q’s cardigan with one arm while the other hand came up to rest on the back of Q’s neck. His own hands found their way into Bond’s back pockets. “I didn’t,” Q said when they had to break for air. 

Bond laughed and while Q was trying to recover from the punch in the gut from the sight up close Bond twirled them around and lifted Q to lay him down on the bed with Bond crouched over him. One hand was next to Q’s head and the other pulled at his clothes, just trying to find bare skin where he could. Q pulled him back down for another kiss and started to work at Bond’s buttons but kept getting distracted by they newly available skin. 

The kisses trailed away from Q’s mouth and down his chest, biting and marking a trail to one nipple to pay some attention to it. In that same moment Bond succeeded in getting his hand in Q’s pants. “Bond,” Q cursed as he arched into him. 

“James, call me James.” He had another infuriating smirk but the words were quiet and once they were out he didn’t stop watching Q. 

Q pulled on his shirt but didn’t say anything. Bond grinned and moved just out of reach. “Come on, Q. Say it.”

Q stared at Bond for a second, just trying to decide if he was going to make him say it, but Bond just kept grinning. “Fine. James, James, please,” he begged like someone in a bad porno then laughed. “Is that what you want?” 

Bond moved up his body and kissed his lips. “Closer.”

Q rolled his eyes but continued to laugh as he pulled at Bond’s shirt. The buttons came open and he smoothed his hands over tanned and toned abs and chest. Bond pushed off the bed and kicked off his trousers and pants. Q wasn’t in a hurry and laid back and watched Bond strip. “Enjoying the show?”

“Yes.”

Bond got a very serious look then grabbed the end of Q’s trousers and pulled. Q slid a bit on the bed before the trousers came free. “Eager?”

“Can you blame me? You can’t tease a man like this for months, Q.” Bond crawled back over him only to have Q roll them over so that Q was the one laying half over Bond’s body. He wrapped a hand around Bond’s cock who sighed into the touch. The next second he buried his hand into Q’s hair and pulled him down for another kiss. His fingers curled in Q’s hair and pulled just right. Another hand traveled down Q’s side and grasped his cock. 

It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. MI6 wasn’t exactly providing him with lube and the bed was far to small for the both of them. For a while though it was good. He was with Bond and that was good enough for that moment. Q came first with a moan and biting into Bond’s shoulder to muffle himself a bit. Bond followed not a second after Q’s teeth sunk in. 

Q let Bond clean them up with the corner of the blanket and couldn’t help but think about just how stupid he was. Not 2 hours into his official employment with MI6 and he was already sleeping with their most infamous agent. 

“You’re thinking too much,” Bond said.

“I didn’t even make you buy me dinner,” Q lamented. 

Bond laughed and pulled Q closer. “I bought you a cat.”

“You also tried to shoot me.”

“How long are you going to hold that against me?”

Q looked up at him arced his brow.

“Fine. Dinner tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! If you want to read my extra long, extra sappy author’s notes you can on  this post on my Tubmlr. 
> 
> If not I want to say thank you to everyone who read this fic, left kudos, bookmarked, subscribed, or left comments. Especially any of you who stuck with me through a two year unannounced unplanned hiatus. You’re all the best.


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